MEASUREMENT OF SOCIAL CAPITAL IN THE UK PENNY

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Measurement of social capital in the UK

Penny Babb

Social Analysis and Reporting Division

Office for National Statistics

This paper presents the context for the development of statistics on social capital in the UK, the approach taken for measuring social capital, and the UK position on international work in the area.

In terms of the reasons for work on measuring social capital, it is helpful to first consider the political context for these developments. In 1997 a new government came to power in Britain. It was the first Labour government for 18 years and they brought with them a shift in thinking and approach to policy development.

There was a new interest in evidence-based policy – drawing on social research to inform the nature, implementation and evaluation of policies. There was also a desire to address social inequalities – looking for ways to reduce the gap between the advantaged and disadvantaged of UK society. This focus resulted in the development of community policies, to regenerate neighbourhoods and promote cohesive communities. The principal aim of the community policy is to:

develop strong and active communities in which people of all races and backgrounds are valued and participate on equal terms…

This was also a period of great change for government statistics. The UK national statistics office was created from the Central Statistics Office and the Office for Population Censuses and Surveys. There was a move also to become more responsive to policy needs for data. However, at the same it was recognised that we needed also to be more proactive in identifying pertinent issues and ways that we could inform the development of policy through the collection and dissemination of statistics.

Alongside this was a desire to expand our analysis and reporting of social change. Part of this was in looking for new ways of describing the trends and issues of particular societal interest. But also there was an increased awareness of the need to examine the impact of factors operating at an areal level, as well as individual characteristics.

A number of topics emerged of central concern – these were ethnicity and identity, e-society and social capital. These were each areas that required developments in the collection of data to assist in the formulation of appropriate policies. Social capital was an issue of tremendous interest in numerous government departments – particularly those covering education, health, crime and citizenship but also through to the central policy strategy and delivery areas.

However, social capital is a nebulous concept and one that required definition and operationalising for use in the policy context. It is multifaceted and operates at both individual and areal levels. It is also culturally sensitive and so needed understanding as experienced within the United Kingdom.

ONS has a key role and responsibility to provide the tools for the data collection – part of this is to ensure that harmonised questions for use on surveys are developed and used to support the cross-government initiatives.

There has been much debate both within the UK and internationally over the definition of social capital. It encapsulates a new way of looking at old problems. However there is now general consensus that social capital is to do with networks and norms. The OECD definition of social capital presented in The Well-Being of Nations describes it as:

networks together with shared norms, values and understandings that facilitate co-operation within or among groups

This embodies both networks and norms and so was adopted in the UK to form the basis of our data collection and analysis.

To measure social capital, we first needed to identify the key dimensions that underpin it. Five main aspects form the basis of the UK work:

civic participation – the propensity to vote, to take action on local or national issues
social networks and support – such as contact with friends and relatives
social participation – involvement in groups and voluntary activities
reciprocity and trust – which include giving and receiving favours, as well as trusting other people and institutions such as the government and the police
views about the area – although not strictly a measure of social capital, it is required for the analysis and interpretation of the social capital measures, and includes satisfaction with living in the area, problems in the area.

This framework is based on earlier work carried out in the UK and international studies. Our aim has been to produce a standardised set of questions that can be used in national and local studies to describe the patterns of social capital within the UK, and to help inform the development of national governmental policies, as well as local community action.

Two forms of the harmonised question set were developed – the full or main set which takes around 20 minutes to complete and the core question set which takes about 5 minutes to complete. The question set is currently being run on the General Household Survey in Great Britain. Results will be available in 2006. It is also being adopted on other household surveys within the UK, including the Citizenship Survey and the Survey of English Housing, which is currently in the field.

The UK harmonised question set was originally designed for computer-assisted interviewing and work is now underway to develop a self-completion version. Alongside this is the preparation of a guide or tool-kit to provide the information needed to help design and run the postal surveys that will use these questions.

Questions on bridging social capital that represent networks that help us get ahead in life couldn’t be included within the first stage of the development. However, work is now planned to develop and then test these questions in order to extend the question set.

We are also in the process of investigating the nature of the social capital of young people. Earlier work highlighted that this age group had surprisingly low levels when measured on the same indices as used for all adults. In the course of the analysis the question arose whether this difference was due to genuinely low levels of involvement or whether the measures used failed to pick up the actual activities undertaken by young people. This is an example of one way in which social capital is context specific. New questions were developed to test this hypothesis and the results are currently being examined.

The GHS 2004 data will be analysed – probably in early 2006 when the data become available – to describe the national picture of social capital and provide a baseline for comparisons into the future and against local studies.

These data will also be used to model local level estimates of social capital indicators. This modelling work is currently underway using the British Crime Survey to produce estimates of indicators such as helping each other, tight knit community, friendly place to live and fear of crime. We hope to include these estimates on our web site showing neighbourhood statistics across the UK.

There is a general desire within national statistical offices to be able to compare with other nations. Many of the problems that are encountered are not unique to social capital measurement. However, the problems of conceptualisation are magnified with social capital. The problem is compounded as we look at the varying nature of different societies and their experience of social capital. Add language into the mix and the measurement becomes even more challenging.

There is much to be gained from striving for a common understanding of the facets of social capital. We have learnt much from the experience of other countries, both in terms of their particular experience of social capital, as well as their means of approaching its measurement. However, it is important that we appreciate the differences when defining indicators, for example, voting becomes less useful as a measure when it is mandatory, as in some countries.

We also need to recognise that the social capital experience within one country is impacted by the events in other countries. This may be through, for example, migration, and the interaction of differing cultures. It may also be through economic and social events – the recent events in Iraq will have had a tremendous effect in other countries on the views of individuals and the experience within communities, depending on their religious beliefs, ethnicity or country of birth.

These problems are further compounded by the dynamic nature of social capital, such as changes in networks and the impact of technological developments, leading to shifts in lifestyle, and also to problems in comparing indicators over time. For example, cohort differences are likely to be observed following the uptake of texting and emailing as ways of keeping in touch with friends and relatives.

It is important to acknowledge the work of the OECD and the Siena group, and their member countries, for their work over the past few years in addressing these key issues. The OECD raised four possible options regarding international comparisons at their conference on social capital measurement in Budapest in 2003.

The first presents a non-flexible module that is agreed at an international level. The second provides a flexible list with perhaps a core set of indicators, plus a series of optional questions run on a variety of surveys rather than one dedicated survey. The third option covers internationally agreed concepts, but without specific questions. It would involve having specified the underlying dimensions of social capital and established agreed definitions and categorisations. These would be supported by defined indicators and guidelines on the ways to conduct the survey, such as on sampling methods and response rates. While being responsive to local needs and experience, it would limit to a degree the comparability between countries.

The last option is to agree to disagree – this would exacerbate international comparability problems and limit possible comparisons and sharing of experience.

Our preference is for something between options 2 and 3. We feel it is vital to reach a common understanding of the key concepts of social capital but also to appreciate that these will be played out differently between different countries. This will allow us to still learn from others to inform our own measurement and policy development.

The guidelines would also allow us to identify best practice but wherever possible to use common indicators. However it won’t always be meaningful to do so and different indicators may be needed to reflect the local experience.

The efforts to achieve standardisation are already underway. For example the European Union Survey of Income and Living Conditions has included indicators of social participation, such as contact with relatives and friends, and informal volunteering. While there was some debate over the appropriate phrasing, a version of these questions will be included when the questionnaire is adopted. It will be some years before the data will be obtained, when we will have an opportunity to be able to make the first comparisons. However, this is a useful experience and can help inform our further efforts to achieve comparability.

The UK harmonised question set is presented on the UK National Statistics web site: www.statistics.gov.uk/socialcapital

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