Human and social capital in Soweto in 1999 – preliminary report on field study: Background and descriptive statistics

Policy Paper (Interest) 04

This paper summarises data that were gathered in a 1,000-household survey done in Soweto in mid-1999. The purpose of the survey was to test some hypotheses on the interrelationships between certain kinds of human capital and of social capital; information was collected on education as well as other forms of human capital, and on a number of social capital factors under the categories of household composition, group membership, values, and various forms of trust. Household expenditure was also explored in detail, both as a proxy for household income and in order to determine current investment in human and social capital.