Family Social Capital and Children's Behavior Problems

We argue that social capital which inheres in the relationships between parents and children should be associated with internalisation of social norms in children. Changes in parental working conditions and family circumstances should affect children's social adjustment because such factors affect the formation and use of social capital in families. We study variations in children's behavior problems in a sample of 524 6-8 year old children in married couple families in 1988 derived from the National Longitudinal Survey's Youth Cohort study of mothers and children. We find that higher levels of mothers' mastery and more positive home environments protect children against behavior problems