ABSTRACT
However, the following section gives an average of a limited portion of social networks by economic class. Social networks are important for deriving benefits from public and private resources and making the most of local opportunities. Thus, it is more important for the livelihoods of the rural poor. All economic classes have some sort of social networks but the rich have access to many more social networks than the very poor. The survey results show that non-poor households possess strong relational capital with rich and politically influential relatives, while chronically poor households have very few such relatives. Thus, poor people have the fewest opportunities to benefit from local services. Table 9.1 indicates that about 61 per cent of non-poor households have strong relational capital with rich/politically influential persons, while this figure is 45 per cent for descending non-poor and 28 per cent for ascending poor households. But the chronically poor people have the lowest percentage (18 per cent) of such relational capital. Household status in respect of economy is a good indicator of social capital, with very poor households being least likely to have a rich and influential relative. The differences in levels of relational capital between non-poor and chronically poor households is highly significant (P < 0.01), indicating that non-poor households have high social capital compared to chronically poor
Membership in economic and political institutions works in helping economically and it may be termed institutional capital because members can easily derive material and non-material benefits from the institution. The most common local institutions include Union Parishad, bank, NGO, school/ madrasah/mosque management committees, clubs etc. where the rural people can be members or associated members. However, the participation varies with economic status. The non-poor household heads have higher rates of involvement in membership of different local institutions (45 per cent) and thus they have higher institutional capital, while the chronically poor household heads have lower institutional capital and they report the lowest level (12 per cent) of membership in local institutions (P < 0.01) ). About 23 per cent of the descending non-poor household heads are involved in committees compared to 25 per cent of the heads of ascending poor households (Table 9.2). Membership in local institutions is thus positively correlated with the economic status of the household. Increased level of participation in local institutions increases the institutional network.
