Social capital and COVID-19: a multidimensional and multilevel approach

TLDR

Outbreaks like COVID‑19 are better managed in places with high social capital, though the mechanisms remain unclear. This study develops a multidimensional, multilevel framework to disentangle how different forms and levels of social capital influence pandemic responses. The framework is applied to survey data from Hubei, China (April 2020) and the World Values Survey (2016‑2020). Results show that individual‑level trust and norms drive collective action and compliance, while community‑level networks mobilize resources, and in authoritarian settings compliance depends more on trust in political institutions than interpersonal trust.

Abstract

Growing evidence suggests that outbreaks such as the COVID-19 pandemic are better handled in places where social capital is high. Less clear, however, are the channels through which social capital makes communities better able to respond to outbreaks. In this article I develop a multidimensional and multilevel approach that compares the potential dissimilar effects of social capital in different forms and at different levels. As social capital in different forms and at different levels can affect social outcomes through distinctive means, such an approach can help detect the processes underlying how social capital works. I illustrate this new approach by analyzing data from a survey I conducted in late April 2020 in China's Hubei province as well as data from the most recent World Values Survey (WVS, 2016–2020). Results suggest that social capital affects COVID-19 response mainly through facilitating collective actions and promoting public acceptance of and compliance with control measures in the form of trust and norms at the individual level. Social capital can also help mobilize resources in the form of networks at the community level. In an authoritarian context, compliance with control measures relies more on people's trust in their political institutions, less on trust in each other.