The double-edged sword of social capital: Impacts on women's health in extreme poverty

Social capital is extremely important in determining health outcomes yet relatively little is known about how different types of social capital impact on individuals’ health outcomes, particularly for the poorest in society. We use secondary data generated from a quasi-experimental study conducted among extremely poor women in rural Bangladesh and apply Propensity Score Matching (PSM) technique to create comparable treatment and control groups. Using a comparative analytical approach, we examine how social capital effects vary and investigate how different social capital measures are associated with extremely poor women’s health. We find that an increase in social capital is not always good for the health outcomes with effects dependent upon both the efforts required by an individual to acquire social capital and the cost implications associated with creating and maintaining social networks. Equally, we are able to identify a positive link between social capital and self-reported health amongst the population that receive specific interventions, but negative for the control group where the quality, rather than quantity, of social capital is strongly associated with better health outcomes. • An increase in social capital is not always good for the health outcomes of extreme poor women. • The effects dependent upon both the efforts required to acquire social capital and the cost implications. • The quality, rather than quantity, of social capital is more important for creating better health outcomes.