SOCIAL CAPITAL IN BRAZIL: AN ANALYSIS OF ITS DETERMINANTS

Back to Page Authors: Lilian Lopes Ribeiro, Ana Cristina Lima Maia, Lilian Lopes Ribeiro, Ana Cristina Lima Maia

Keywords: social capital, social cohesion, world values, Brazil

Abstract: The article analyzes the determinants of social capital in Brazil. In order to meet this objective, a social capital index was initially calculated based on the principal component technique. For the construction of this index, a total of twenty indicators extracted from the WVS are considered, eleven of them related to the interviewee's participation in organizations/associations and nine referring to interpersonal trust. The analysis is made from the marginal effects of the logit model. Among the results, it was found that the variable that tends to contribute most to the formation of social capital is education. Having a college degree tends to increase the chances of an individual having, for example, a "very high" endowment of social capital by 14%. It was also observed that those who live in the Midwest and Southern regions of Brazil are more likely to have a higher level of this capital.