Individual social capital is increasingly considered to be an important determinant of an individual"s health. This study examines the extent to which individual social capital is associated with self-rated health and the extent to which individual social capital mediates the relationship between neighbourhood deprivation and self-rated health in an English sample. Individual social capital was conceptualized and operationalized in both the social cohesion-and network resource tradition, using measures of generalized trust, social participation and social network resources. Network resourceswere measured with the position generator. Multilevel analyses were applied to wave 2 and 3 of the Taking Part Surveys of England, which consist of face-to-face interviews among the adult population in England (N i =25,366 respondents, N j =12,388 neighbourhoods). The results indicate that generalized trust, participation with friends and relatives and having network members from the salariat class are positively associated with self-rated health. Having network members from the working class is, however, negatively related to self-rated health. Moreover, these social capital elements are partly mediating the negative relationship between neighbourhood deprivation and self-rated health.

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This study investigates how the socio-economic positions of the parents shape the access to social capital of their children. We examine the influence of three parental socio-economic positions on the access to three job-finding resources from the family among labour market entrants. In addition, we examine how ethnic differences in family social capital are rooted in the unequal socio-economic positions of different ethnic categories. For these purposes, we collected data from 2,176 labour market entrants in Belgium and designed an instrument to measure three types of job-finding resources: labour market information, job information, and encouragement to search for a job. Moreover, we used a multidimensional perspective on social stratification by examining the educational levels, the social class positions, and the employment statuses of the parents. Our results show substantial socio-economic inequalities in family social capital: labour market entrants whose parents are higher educated, employed and/or from the service class have more access to job-finding resources from the family. Moreover, ethnic minorities in Belgium, especially the Turks, Moroccans, and Balkans, have less access to job-finding resources from the family than natives. These findings demonstrate the powerful interplay of parental socio-ethnic influences in shaping inequalities in social capital. Moreover, it is the first crucial step to establish how socio-economic inequalities are reproduced over generations through the functioning of social capital.

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