Social Capital or Social Cohesion? Continuity and Change in Sense of Community and Wellbeing in Taiwan

• In Event: 1451 - Community and Urban Sociology Section Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 7. Issues in China and Taiwan

Abstract

Researchers from community psychology, urban sociology, and urban planning share common inquiries on how sense of community (SoC) evolves across time in different societal contexts, and how it links with health and wellbeing. Existing literature from Western democratic societies identified that the multiple theoretical and operational definitions of SoC are relevant to social capital and social cohesion at the individual- and collective- levels. One major research gap is to clarify such conceptual overlaps and the differential mechanisms connecting SoC with health, happiness, and other measures of subjective wellbeing. We used comparable data from the Taiwan Social Change Survey administered in 1997 and 2017. Over the twenty-year time period, there is a significant increase in sense of community membership and a decrease in sense of community consciousness that took place across areas of different urbanization levels. Respndents with a higher level of education or resided in more urbanized areas showed a stronger sense of community consciousness, while those in rural areas or received less education showed a stronger sense of community attachment. A higher sense of community affinity is associated with better health and higher level of happiness, while other four SoC dimensions showed varied strength and directions of associations with subjective wellbeing. Through recognizing SoC as a multi-dimensional construct that contains elements of structural and cognitive social capital as well as social cohesion, we suggest that developing SoC may be a viable community-level strategy to buffer the socioeconomic, cultural, health, and wellbeing disadvantage among vulnerable social groups.

Author

• Hsin-Chieh Chang, National Taiwan University