Structural social capital and health in Italy

TL;DR

This study empirically examines the causal link between social capital, measured by meeting frequency with friends, and health outcomes in Italy, revealing that more frequent social interactions significantly improve self-reported health.

Contribution

It provides the first empirical evidence of the causal relationship between social capital and health in Italy using IV and probit models.

Findings

Frequent social meetings increase likelihood of reporting good health by 11-16%.

The study uses a large, representative Italian sample from 2000.

It employs IV and bivariate probit estimates to establish causality.

Abstract

This paper presents the first empirical assessment of the causal relationship between social capital and health in Italy. The analysis draws on the 2000 wave of the Multipurpose Survey on Household conducted by the Italian Institute of Statistics on a representative sample of the population (n = 46,868). Our measure of social capital is the frequency of meetings with friends. Based on IV and bivariate probit estimates, we find that individuals who meet friends every day or at least two times a week are approximately 11% to 16% more likely to report good health.