Abstract
Abstract
Background
Social capital is generally portrayed to be protective of adolescents’ health and wellbeing against the effects of socioeconomic inequalities. However, few empirical evidence exist on this protective role of social capital regarding adolescents’ wellbeing in the low-and middle-income country (LMIC) context. This study examines the potential for social capital to be a protective health resource by investigating whether social capital can mediate the relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and wellbeing of Ghanaian adolescents. It also examines how SES and social capital relate to different dimensions of adolescents’ wellbeing in different social contexts.
Methods
The study employed a cross-sectional survey involving a randomly selected 2068 adolescents (13-18 years) from 15 schools (8 Senior and 7 Junior High Schools) in Ghana. Relationships were assessed using multivariate regression models.
Results
Three measures of familial social capital (family sense of belonging, family autonomy support, and family control) were found to be important protective factors of both adolescents’ life satisfaction and happiness against the effects of socioeconomic status. One measure of school social capital (school sense of belonging) was found to augment adolescents’ wellbeing but played no mediating role in the SES-wellbeing relationship. A proportion of about 69 and 42% of the total effect of SES on happiness and life satisfaction were mediated by social capital respectively. Moreover, there were variations in how SES and social capital related to the different dimensions of adolescents’ wellbeing.
Conclusion
Social capital is a significant mechanism through which SES impacts the wellbeing of adolescents. Social capital is a potential protective health resource that can be utilised by public health policy to promote adolescents’ wellbeing irrespective of socioeconomic inequalities. Moreover, the role of the family (home) in promoting adolescents’ wellbeing is superior to that of school which prompts targeted policy interventions. For a holistic assessment of adolescents’ subjective wellbeing, both life evaluations (life satisfaction) and positive emotions (happiness) should be assessed concomitantly.
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Subject
Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
Reference39 articles.
1. Bwalya JC, Sukumar P. The Relationship Between Social Capital and Children’s Health Behaviour in Ireland. Available at SSRN 3418320; 2019.
2. Inchley J, Currie D. Growing up unequal: gender and socioeconomic differences in young People’s health and wellbeing: health behaviour in school-aged children (HBSC) study. Health policy for children and adolescents No, vol. 7; 2016.
3. Viner R. How to measure enabling and supportive Systems for Adolescent Health; 2017.
4. Klocke A, Stadtmüller S. Social capital in the health development of children. Child Indic Res. 2019;12(4):1167–85.
5. Morgan A, Rivera F, Moreno C, Haglund BJA. Does social capital travel? Influences on the life satisfaction of young people living in England and Spain. BMC Public Health. 2012;12:138pg1.
Cited by
28 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献