Social capital and community wellbeing in Scotland

Summary of main findings

Overview

Social connections are a central part of people’s lives and wellbeing. They are important in their own right, but they also help people to achieve other goals, for example they provide opportunities for education, work and leisure in the present and in the future. This is why we have a ‘social capital’ national indicator. ‘Social capital’ is a term for the value that is created by social connections and relationships in society.

This report provides information about the extent and nature of social connections and social capital in Scotland. It draws on a range of data – from both the Scottish Household Survey and qualitative research - to explore social capital in Scotland. The focus of the report is on the time from 2018 / 2019 to 2022. This is the period of the COVID-19 pandemic and cost of living crisis, and the report considers the possible effects of these on social capital.

It considers the quality of people’s social networks, how people feel about their neighbours and neighbourhoods, the control and influence people feel they have over their circumstances, and levels of social participation.

Social capital is presented under four themes. They are:

• Social Networks
• Community Cohesion
• Community Empowerment
• Social Participation

To assess change over time the four themes are included in a ‘social capital index’. The index is a simplified measure that allows us to monitor changes in levels of social capital nationally since 2013 (there is more detail in Section 2).

Key points

1. Neighbourhoods are rated well across a range of dimensions in Scotland including neighbourhood quality, and perceived neighbourhood help, kindness, and trust.

The latest data (2022) shows evidence of positive perceptions of neighbourhoods in communities across Scotland. The vast majority (95%) rate their neighbourhood as a ‘good’ or ‘very good’ place to live, 91% would help their neighbours in an emergency and 87% could rely on neighbours to help them.

The proportion of people who rate their neighbourhood as a ‘very good’ place to live has historically (since 1999) been between 50% and 57%, so this is a relatively stable measure.^[1]

Eighty-seven per cent agree people are kind to each other in their neighbourhood, and 82% that most can be trusted. Eighty-three per cent of adults have a strong sense of belonging to their community.

2. There are some aspects of community life that are not as strong, and this has important consequences.

Neighbourhood empowerment is low. In 2022, only 18% of adults said that they feel they have influence over local decisions where they live, and 4 out of 5 people (82%) do not think they can influence local decision making. This suggests a relatively widespread perception around a lack of control and influence over neighbourhood planning.^[2]

Many people experience loneliness, and this has been increasing. Nearly a quarter (23%) experienced loneliness in the past week. This is a large proportion of the population – approximately 1 million adults in Scotland.^[3] This has further consequences for society, particularly where loneliness increases the risk of mental and physical health conditions^[4] and puts demands on public services.

Volunteering has been decreasing. Twenty-two percent of people volunteered formally (i.e. as part of organisational activity) in the past 12 months – a four percentage point reduction since 2019. The proportion of people who did any type of volunteering (either formal or informal volunteering) also decreased between 2018 and 2022 (by three percentage points). This reflects a long-term decline in the amount of formal volunteering in Scotland. It highlights an important trend in the capacity of help that can be provided and received by citizens from others.

3. There are inequalities in measures of social capital. National-level measures can disguise (sometimes large) inequalities across different geographical locations, demographics, and other subgroups of the population.

There are large differences in measures of social capital depending on where people live. People in rural areas tend to have more positive experiences of social capital than those in large urban or other urban settings. The level of deprivation between areas may explain some of these differences. However, there are additional factors including differences among the people who live in the areas, and the social and economic history of places.

There are differences between different subgroups of the population (by age, disability, ethnicity, sex, household type and tenure). There is a gap between disabled and non-disabled people across every measure of social capital. Disabled people are over twice as likely to feel lonely, less safe in their neighbourhoods, and they are less likely to meet socially as often as non-disabled people. Minority ethnic groups^[5], and those from a ‘white other’^[6] background, feel a lower sense of belonging.

Perceptions of neighbourhood trust, belonging, and the ability to rely on neighbours for help and support, are all higher (more positive) for older groups. However, the oldest age groups feel the least safe walking alone after dark. Women meet socially more often than men, but feel less safe walking alone after dark.

Loneliness is highest among the youngest (16-24) and oldest (over 75) age groups, despite the fact that these groups meet socially most frequently. This reflects the fact that loneliness is driven by a range of factors beyond social interaction.

There are a range of individual and contextual factors that help to create, sustain and diminish social capital. This report attempts to draw out and understand these in more detail.

4. Social capital measures are lower than they were in 2013.

The Social Capital Index is a method to monitor overall levels of change over time. It shows the extent that the four themes (Cohesion, Empowerment, Participation and Networks) have changed from a starting position in 2013.

There has been an overall decline in social capital since 2013 (down 6.6 points in the index). This decline has mainly been driven by substantial decreases in the Social Participation theme, with a reduction in the proportion of people who took part in formal volunteering. Decreases were also seen in the Community Empowerment theme, with fewer individuals who felt they had influence over local decisions. There was a smaller but notable decline in Social Networks. Community Cohesion was the only theme to show improvements over this period (2013-2022) with an increase in levels of neighbourhood belonging.

The last update to the index was in 2019, and since that point, the social capital index score has remained relatively stable overall, but there are some changes in underlying themes. Despite reductions in social participation, there were improvements in the other three themes (Cohesion, Networks and Empowerment). This suggests there might have been improvements in some aspects of community life, that are discussed in the report.

5. There are signs of improvement in neighbourhood connections since the COVID pandemic.

Between 2018 / 2019 and 2022 people feel more positively about their neighbourhoods and neighbours. More agree that people from different backgrounds get on well together and there was an increase in people who feel a greater sense of belonging to their community. Trust in the neighbourhood and perceptions of kindness also rose. The proportion of people who feel they can turn to their neighbours for advice increased. There have also been improvements in agreement that local people take action to improve their neighbourhoods.

However, people are meeting socially less frequently and the percentage of people who believe they can influence local decisions remains unchanged and low (18%).

There were also changes for different subgroups during this time. Some key points are noted below, but there is fuller discussion in the report and associated tables.

Deprived areas: People in deprived areas feel more positively about their neighbours than three years ago, and neighbourhood trust improved significantly, rising from 60% to 64%, while perceptions of kindness increased from 71% to 76%. The least deprived areas saw no significant changes.

Disability: Both disabled and non-disabled people experienced a drop in meeting socially at least once a week, with a larger decline for disabled people (from 68% to 63%) than non-disabled (from 74% to 71%). Perceptions of safety worsened slightly for non-disabled people (from 88% to 87%) but remained unchanged for disabled people, who consistently felt less safe.

Age: The quality of social networks improved for some age groups. Among younger age groups, adults aged 25-34 saw a significant rise in the percentage of people who could turn to neighbours for advice, increasing from 71% to 76%. However, there has been a concerning decline in weekly social interaction across most age groups, with younger adults experiencing the largest drop. Whilst at a national level loneliness has increased, loneliness has only increased for adults aged 60 to 74, while it remained relatively stable among the other age groups.

Sex^[7]: Women consistently reported higher levels of loneliness than men, though their loneliness remained largely unchanged between 2018 and 2022. In contrast, men’s loneliness increased by three percentage points, rising from 19% to 22%. Men’s perceptions of safety when walking alone after dark remained stable (92%) but women experienced a notable decline, and perceptions of safety dropped by four percentage points, from 76% to 72%.

Whilst there have been some improvements in perceptions of neighbourhood relationship, challenges persist, particularly in maintaining social interactions, and addressing loneliness and safety.

It is possible that some changes are specifically related to the COVID pandemic. For example, this could be due to changes in interaction behaviours because of physical distancing, limits on gatherings (and other) health protection measures, the closure of venues and changes to workplace patterns, including a growth in remote working. It is also possible that any changes may be temporary and future analysis will help to highlight further developments in patterns of social capital (see Discussion of post COVID changes section).

6. Summary

This research shows that social capital has decreased since 2013. This is particularly noticeable in national levels of volunteering, perceptions of democratic influence and power in neighbourhoods and communities, and feelings of loneliness.

Over the period of 2018 / 2019 - 2022 (during the COVID-19 pandemic), people felt more postively about their neighbourhoods and neighbours. Further research is required to explore it what ways the pandemic affected people’s perceptions and how this was experienced for different groups and places. It remians to be seen if these positive changes will sustain over time.

Social capital is not evenly distributed across society, and there are large disaparities between geographical areas and population subgroups. This is particularly noticeable for disabled people, who experience lower levels of social capital across every measure.

These effects have large consequences for Scotland. These include increased demand on public sources of formal support from reductions in volunteering, the costs to public services and responders from increased mental health burden and reduced resilience and capacity to deal with future emergencies.