Social capital and the COVID-19 pandemic threat: The Russian experience

Frontiers in Sociology. 2022. Vol. 7. P. 1.

Tatarko A., Jurcik T., Boehnke K.

Social capital is an important resource for the wellbeing of both the individual
and society. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, many studies
have been conducted to explore the role of social capital in coping with
the negative consequences of the pandemic. However, how the pandemic
itself can a􀀀ect the social capital of people has yet to be studied. Try to
fill this gap, we aimed at testing the association between the individually
perceived coronavirus threat and such indicators of social capital as general
social trust, institutional trust, and the quality of various types of people’s
social relationships (with family, friends, colleagues, neighbors, residents of
a locality, residents of a country). Data were collected in di􀀀erent regions of
the Russian Federation for a convenience sample of 500 respondents. The
study found that the individually perceived coronavirus threat was positively
associated with institutional trust, but not with general social trust. Moreover,
this covariation was moderated by age: an institutional trust-threat relation
emerged only in older respondents with an average age of around 60, but not in
younger participants. Furthermore, the study found that perceived coronavirus
threat was associated with closer relationships in the family, but simultaneously
with an increased distance in relations with neighbors and residents of the
respondents’ locality. In summary, the study indicated that “strong” ties (i.e.,
with family, colleagues, and friends) either remained unchanged or were
intensified in the face of the pandemic threat, whereas “weak” ties (i.e., with
neighbors, residents of the same locality, and fellowcitizens) tended to weaken
even more.

Keywords: social capital, COVID-19

Publication based on the results of: Values, intercultural and socio-economic interaction in the context of ethnic diversity and the COVID-19 pandemic (2022)