Social Capital and the Generation of Human Capital

Abstract

We make use of a large sample of data taken from the National Educational Longitudinal Survey, to examine the effects of various measures of financial, human and social capital on the likelihood of dropping out of school. We test whether social capital mediates the effect of parental financial and human capital on leaving school. The findings indicate that both more general measures of social capital (attending a Catholic school, family structure) and more specific measures of social capital (parent-child and parent-school interaction) are related to dropping out of high school. The findings also indicate that social capital interacts with the financial and human capital of parents to determine school continuation.