[ALBSA-Info] Some Serendipity

[Kreshnik Bejko]

Human and social capital

What money can’t buy
May 10th 2001
>From The Economist print edition

How education and friends enrich

MONEY’S not everything, but can it buy you happiness? Governments of the 
rich countries that belong to the OECD in Paris worry about the links 
between economic growth and well-being. People may be richer, but does 
economic progress damage the ties that hold societies together? And are 
those ties essential to the acquisition of skills and attitudes that help an 
economy to flourish?

Such questions are fashionable with policymakers these days. In a report* 
published on May 10th, the OECD offers a few answers. The concept of human 
capital—of an individual’s skills and knowledge—is familiar enough. But 
social capital—the networks and shared values that encourage social 
co-operation—is woollier and far harder to measure. It is also not obvious 
that “capital” is the right word for anything so nebulous.

However, the report argues that the two ideas may be closely linked—to each 
other and to well-being. Better education goes with better health: more 
educated people smoke less, take more exercise and are less likely to be 
overweight. (One finding suggests that people take 17 minutes more exercise 
a week for each extra year of schooling.) Education also seems to go with 
greater happiness, although social ties and good health are even more 
important. These, too, are connected: old people without friends or 
relatives appear to have a higher risk of developing dementia or Alzheimer’s 
disease.

The report finds no evidence that greater prosperity has depleted “social 
capital reserves”. Indeed, while some argue that social and civic 
involvement has declined in America, it appears to be stable or rising in 
most OECD countries, perhaps because higher education goes with more 
volunteering and social participation.

Plenty of unresolved points remain, especially about the direction of 
causality. Do healthy people have more friends, for instance, or do friends 
keep you healthy? A bigger issue, on which the report offers some tentative 
thoughts, is what governments can do. They have lots of ways to boost human 
capital, through education and training. But would a minister for social 
capital make life easier for families, volunteers and old folk—and how? He 
would need to be a good networker.


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To be or not to be (Shakespeare)
To be is to do (Socrates)
Do be do be do (Sinatra)
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