A life-cycle approach to the analysis of the relationship between social capital and health in Britain

I examine to what extent social capital can promote individual well-being in the form of good physical and mental health. Our analysis is based on multiple waves of data from the National Child Development Survey and the British Cohort Study, two large cohort studies following the lives of children who were born in Britain in one particular week in 1958 and 1970. I use waves that are comparable across the surveys in childhood and adulthood to explore the association between aspects of social capital and several measures of health when adopting a life-cycle approach. The findings suggest that individuals with high levels of social capital generally fare better than individuals with lower levels of social capital and that such associations are robust to the inclusion of controls such as physical and mental health in childhood and circumstances of the family of origin. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.