Construction of social capital index for rural West Bengal
Keywords:
social capital index, voting index, trust, cooperationAbstract
The Sustainable Livelihood Approach adopts the asset-based analysis of poverty to focus on the resource stock at the disposal of any poor community. The absence or short fall of the resources needed for a sustainable livelihood determines a community’s asset position. This approach looks beyond the parameter income and considers different types of assets of any community. The asset stock is very important in reducing or managing poverty of any region. Social capital is one such important asset which determines a community’s stock of social resources like cooperation, trust, fellow-feeling present in the community. Social capital is not uni-dimensional, in this paper we have taken mainly status of education and health of a community. So, the stock of social capital consists of different variables. The paper constructs a Social Capital Index (SCI), which considers education status and health status of the community/region. SCI consists of Voting Index (index of turn-out of voters in Panchayat Election) and Co-operative membership Index (index of percentage of people as members of village cooperative). This index can be used for quantifying a qualitative aspect like social capital (trust, cooperation etc.) in any economic study.
References
Agarwal A (ed). Price of Forests, Centre for Science and Environment, New Delhi, 1992.
Agarwal A, Narain S. Towards Green Villages, Centre for Science and Environment, New Delhi, 1989.
Agarwal C, Singh K. The Village Cooperative Forest Societies in Himachal Pradesh’, in Singh and Ballav ed, Cooperative Management of Natural Resources, Sage Publications, New Delhi, 1996.
Bourdiew Pierre. ‘The Forms of Capital”, first published in English in ‘Handbook of Theory and Research for Sociology of Education’, (New York, Greenwood), 1986. Available at: http://www.istr.org/conferences/dublin/workingpapers/siisiainen.pdf accessed in May 2011
Bourdiew Pierre. ‘Outline of a Theory of Practice, Cambridge University Press, 1972.
Chopra K. ‘Social Capital and Development Process’, Economic and Political Weekly, 2002.
Chopra K, Gulati SC. “Migration, common property resources and Environmental Degradation”, Sage Publications, New Delhi, 1996.
Chopra K. ‘Social Capital and Development Process’ Economic and Political Weekly, 2002.
Grootaert C. “Social Capital: The Missing Link? World Bank Working Paper no 3, 1998. Available at: http://www.siteresources.worldbank.org accessed in May, 2011.
Hardin G, ‘The Tragedy of Commons’, 1968. Available at: www.dieoff.org/page95.htm accessed in May, 2011.
Marothia DK. Cooperative Management of Minor Forest Products in Madhya Pradesh, Sage Publications, New Delhi, 1996.
Mukherjee N. “Measuring Social Capital”, Economic and Political Weekly, 2002.
Putnam Robert. “Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community”, New York, Simon and Schuster, 2000.
Saxena NC. ‘Report of The Expert Group to advise the Ministry of Rural Development on the methodology for conducting BPL Census for the 11th Five Year Plan, August 2009.
Scoones I. Sustainable Rural Livelihoods A Framework for Analysis, IDS Working Paper 72, 1998. Available at www.sarpn.org.za/.../P1833-Sustainable-rural-livelihoods-IDS-paper72.pdf accessed in May, 2011.
Siisiäinen M. ‘Two concepts of social capital: Bourdieu vs. Putnam’ by, Dept of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of Jyväskylä, Paper presented at ISTR Fourth International Conference, “The Third Sector: For What and For Whom?” Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, July 5-8, 2000. Available at: www.istr.org/conferences/dublin/workingpapers/siisiainen.pdf, accessed in May, 2011.
Singh K, Ballav V (ed). Cooperative Management of Natural Resources, Sage Publications, New Delhi, 1996.
Singh and Ballav. Cooperative Management of Natural Resources, Sage Publications, 1996.
www.ifad.org
www.worldbank.org.in
www.chronicpoverty.org
www.ilo.org
www.livelihoods.org
www.iifm.ac.in
www.fao.org
www.naip.icar.org.in
