Social Capital in Association with Socioeconomic Variables in Iran

The objective of this study was to determine the various dimensions of social capital in Tehran and its association with socioeconomic
variables. Two thousand, four hundred and eighty-four persons participated in the study through multi-stage stratified sampling
in Tehran. The study questions were extracted from the World Bank integrated questionnaire. While respondents obtained over
50 % of the attainable scores in the ‘trust’, ‘cooperation’, ‘social cohesion’, and ‘political action’ dimensions, they obtained
only 18.9 % of the attainable scores in the ‘networks’ dimension. The respondents in age groups older than 45 had higher trust
scores than respondents in the 18–25 age group. Men had higher ‘network’ and ‘social cohesion’ scores than women (p ≤ 0.001). Respondents in the poorest wealth quintile had lower ‘networks’ and ‘social cohesion’ scores than the richest group
and ‘political action’ scores higher than the richest group (p = 0.038). The lowest score in ‘Tehranians’ social capital was in the groups and networks dimension. Therefore designing effective
interventions for such activities, particularly in women’s groups, is a priority.