Does Social Capital Benefit the Improvement of Rural Households’ Sustainable Livelihood Ability? Based on the Survey Data of Jiangxi Province, China

Abstract

This article examines the influence of social capital on the sustainable livelihood ability of rural households who are out of poverty, in order to promote the sustainable development of their livelihood. Based on the survey data of 371 out-of-poverty households in rural Jiangxi, we analyzed the relationship between social capital and households’ sustainable livelihood ability using “Ordinary Least Square (OLS) + robust standard error” regression models and quantile regression models. Households’ social capital was measured from the following three dimensions: social network, social participation, and social trust. The benchmark regression models showed that social capital index, social network, and social participation all had a significant positive effect on the sustainable livelihood ability of out-of-poverty households. However, the impact of social trust on sustainable livelihood ability was not significant. In addition, the quantile regression analysis results showed that social capital index, social network, social participation, and social trust all contributed the most to households with a low sustainable livelihood ability. Therefore, it is suggested to improve the social capital accumulation of out-of-poverty households from multiple dimensions, so as to enhance the sustainable livelihood ability of households and consolidate poverty-alleviation achievements.