Social Capital and the East Asian Welfare Society Model？Models?:
Evidence from 2003-2008 Asia Barometer
Zhang Jiyuan
Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology, The University of Tokyo

Abstract
This article measures social capital in East Asia to test two hypotheses in the discussion of“Social Welfare Society Model”, based on 2003-2008 Asia Barometer. The most important findingis the different characteristics of Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia, which there is homogeneity
in Northeast Asia, but diversity in Southeast Asia. We also find that, public good social capital has
a stronger effect upon welfare than private good social capital, and Northeast Asia in general has
a high level of public good social capital. All of these evidences may indicate that it’s more valid to
discuss the “Social Welfare Society Model” limited to East Asia.
1. Introduction
A number of studies have discussed about East Asian welfare, which can be classified into two
main groups according to the research target region. The first one is focused on North East Asia,
especially the East Asian welfare states (Jones: 1990; Goodman and Peng:1996;
Esping-Andersen:1999; Holliday:2000; Uzuhashi:1997; Takegawa:1999,2007; Kim:2008). The
second one covers both North East Asia and South East Asia, focusing on the exploitation ofdeveloping countries (ILO: 1996; Hiroi and Komamura: 2003; Osawa:2004; Aratame:2006,2007;
Oizumi:2007; Suehiro:2010).
Both of the discussions above are deeply influenced by Esping Andersen’s work “The ThreeWorlds of Welfare Capitalism”, and both of them share almost the same changes. We can see
these changes through the names given by the researchers in different periods. Comparing to“liberal welfare state”, “conservative welfare state”, and “social democratic welfare state”,
Welfare states in East Asia are called “oikonomic welfare states”, “Confucian welfare states”(Jones:1990), “developmental states” (Suehiro:1996). This is the so-called “East Asian WelfareStates” discussion, and later there are some researchers using the expressions as following todescribe the discussions, “East Asian Social Welfare System” (Suehiro:2006), “East Asian Welfare
Model” (Aratame:2007), “East Asian Welfare Society Model” (Noguchi:2009).
The changes of the name reflect the shift from welfare state to welfare society. In the 20th
century, as the saying “from the cradle to the grave” goes, government played the mostimportant role in social welfare. But when it came to the end of the 20th century, the financial
burden increased in these welfare states, leading to the “crisis of welfare states”. Community
welfare and NPOs are paid more attention to in such circumstances. And the emphasis of thesocial welfare policy also changed from social spending levels to QOL (quality of life). In suchbackground, some researchers began to discuss the possibility of “Asian Welfare Model”, focusing
on Japan’s community welfare (Aratame: 2006,2007; Oizumi:2007, Noguchi:2009).
The main idea in Aratame(2007), which discussed the Japan’s community welfare and thepossibility of “East Asian Welfare Model”, is that the government can’t undertake the key role in1social welfare as the Welfare States in the East Asian developing countries do, so they shouldmake use of the function of the market, and create a system that puts the volunteer, private
profit and nonprofit organizations, and also the traditional region group to practical use. In“Social Protection Sector Strategy” (2001), the World Bank also suggests that informal traditionalgroups are very important to the social welfare policies in developing countries, and we shouldemphasize the international support through social capital.
The main points can be summarized in the theory of social capital in the following sentences:
there is a large quantity of social capital in the East Asian countries, and it should be madepractical use in social welfare policy, which shows the hint of “East Asian Welfare Model”.
The question we have to realize is that this discussion based on two hypotheses as premises.
Hypothesis 1, there is a large quantity of social capital in every East Asian country, whichindicates the high quantity and homogeneity of social capital in the East Asia.
Hypothesis 2, social capital promotes welfare.
Can these hypotheses be empirically tested?
We intend to do this by analyzing data from the 2003-2008 Asia Barometer (an Asia Values
Study survey). We will give a brief overview on the definition and classification of social capital,
and the discussion of the relationship between social capital and social welfare. After that, we
will measure social capital of the East Asian countries in order to test hypothesis 1. To test
hypothesis 2, we should evaluate the welfare of every East Asian country. We must notice thatthe “welfare” in hypothesis 2 is not “welfare policy”, but refers to ensuring the QOL or welfare of
civic citizens. So we will test it using subjective indicators, examining the relationship betweensocial capital and feeling of happiness and satisfaction of social welfare system. Finally, we willsummarize the conclusion and findings, and point out the limitations of this approach.
2. Social Capital and Social Welfare
The term of “social capital” was first used by L. J. Hanifan in his article regarding local support
for rural schools in 1916. But the concept didn’t gain popularity until the publication of Robert
Putnam’s “Making Democracy Work”. He studied the performance of twenty regional Italian
governments since 1970, which were all regional government institutions but differed in theirlocal social, economic and cultural context. He found that regional governments performed bestwhere there were strong traditions of civic engagement. And he concluded that one of the mostimportant reasons is the different levels of social capital, which contained the general trust,norms of reciprocity, and networks within these different regions of Italy.
Social capital has many distinct dimensions. Putnam (2000) classified social capital into
bonding and bridging dimensions. Bonding social capital is “inward looking and tends to reinforce
exclusive identities and homogeneous groups”, in contrast bridging social capital is “outward
looking and encompasses people across diverse social cleavages” (Putnam 2000:22). Uphoff(2001) categorized it into the structural (roles, rules, precedents, and procedures), and thecognitive (norms, values, attitudes, and beliefs). Inaba (2005) grouped networks amongindividuals, and networks among organizations into private good; general trust and norms ofreciprocity into public good; and the trust and norms within certain group into club good.
As the understanding to social capital, various measurements have been proposed (Healy and
Cote 2001; Grootaert et al. 2004), and the research has been conducted not only among regions
2within a country (Putnam: 2002; Kawachi:1997,1999), but also at the international comparative
level . Fukuyama (1995) showed that economic conditions are good where there is a high level ofgeneral trust. Knack (1997) argued that general trust and norms are highly related to theeconomic performance, but there is no sign of relevance to the participation of organizations. But
there are also some researchers who have argued that social capital does relate to the good
performance of society, but it is limited to special countries such as those in the OECD
(Hatakeyama:2009). Many studies have been concerned mostly with Western countries,
producing almost no information about East Asia. Therefore, this study is focused on the EastAsia.
The relevance of social and welfare is discussed in many dimensions. Kawachi (2002) argued
that norms and the community ties promote health behaviors, club activities increase theservices which are good for health, and political action, such as voting, can promote theperformance of health care system. Subramanian (2002) reported that unhealthy conditions are
related to the lack of social capital。
With the shift from welfare state to welfare society, and the changes of demographic andsocial structure (such as aging society), “the failure of government” and “the failure of market”
expanded to more and more social regions, because of the lack of social capital. And more andmore attention is paid to the volunteer activities and NPOs to build social capital (Adachi: 2008).
The relevance of social capital and welfare state is also discussed. Some researchers found thatwelfare state can both prevent and promote social capital (Kumilin and Rothstein: 2005;
Kaariainen and Lehtonen: 2006). Kaariainen and Lehtonen (2006) discussed on two hypothesesby comparing the three types of welfare state. The first one is the society-centered hypothesis,
which assumes that social capital emerges first and foremost in close communities such as
families, local communities, or in civic engagement. The second theory is the institution-centered
hypothesis which begins from the premise that social capital develops mainly in societies with astrong political system and very well-functioning public administration. These scholars concluded
that both hypotheses are partly correct.
To measure welfare/QOL, Mieno (2010) divided the indicators into three groups. The first one
is monetary (economic), the second one is non-monetary (sociological, social psychological), andthe third one is medical. According to these previous studies, we confirmed that social capital can
promote economic performance, which is an economic indicator, and health, which is a medical
indicator. The sociological indicators are neglected. All the aforementioned studies dealt with
developed countries. This brings up the question: how relevant are conclusions drawn fromempirical studies using the data of both developed and developing countries? Can we get thesame conclusion from sociological indicators? In this article, we will take the approach.
3. Data and Methods
1) Data
The data is from 2003~2008 Asia Barometer Survey (Australia, Russia, America excluded). Our
analyses are confined to 13 East Asian countries (region), including Cambodia, China, Hong Kong,
Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand andVietnam. The target population of this survey is the adults of 20~69 years old, while samples
were taken by stratified random sampling and quota sampling methods, and the survey was3taken by interviewers. The total size of the 13 countries (region) is 31094 samples, and eachcountry (region) has at least 1000 samples (Table 3-1).
Table 3-1 Overview of Data Collection
2003
Cambodia

2004

2006

2007

2008

Total

0

812

0

1012

0

1824

800

1000

2000

0

1000

4800

Hong Kong

0

0

1000

0

0

1000

Indonesia

0

825

0

1000

0

1825

Japan

857

825

1003

0

1012

3697

Laos

0

800

0

1000

0

1800

Malaysia

800

800

0

1000

0

2600

Philippines

0

800

0

1000

0

1800

Singapore

0

800

1038

0

0

1838

South Korea

800

819

1023

0

0

2642

Taiwan

0

0

1006

0

0

1006

Thailand

800

800

0

1000

0

2600

Vietnam

807

800

1000

0

0

2607

Total

4864

9081

8070

6012

3067

31094

China

2)

Variables
Independent variables
We measure social capital with the traditional indicators and questions. General trust,reciprocity and networks are the three main factors of social capital, and network can be
distinguish between bonding network and bridging network (Putnam: 2000; Naikakuhu: 2003).
Therefore, we use general trust, reciprocity, bonding network and bridging network as theindicators of social capital.
In Asia Barometer Survey, there are some questions designed for measuring social capital,
using the same questions as the other surveys (e.g. World Value Survey), such as the questions ofgeneral trust and reciprocity. The question of general trust is, “Generally, do you think people canbe trusted or do you think that you can’t be too careful in dealing with people (that it pays to bewary of people)? (SA)”. The answers are, “1 Most people can be trusted”, “2 Can’t be too careful
in dealing with people”, “3 Don’t know”. We take the percentage of respondents who answered 1
as general trust score.
The question of reciprocity is, “Do you think that people generally try to be helpful or do you
think that they mostly look out for themselves (SA)”. The answers are, “1 People generally try to
be helpful”, “2 People mostly look out for themselves”, “9 Don’t Know”. We take the percentageof respondents who answered 1 as reciprocity score.
The question about network used in the previous study is the number of groups you joined,
such as family, cooperatives, NPOs, and religions (World Bank: 2002; Naikakuhu: 2003) which is
not contained in AsiaBarometer survey. But, there is a question referring the importance of social
circles or groups, “Which of the following social circles or groups are important to you (MA)”. And
the answers are “family”, “relatives”, “place of work”, “Club, hobby circle, etc.”, “the school /university you attended”, “the region where you grew up”, “People who speak the same language4

or dialect as you”, “neighborhood”, “agricultural cooperative, commercial cooperative or industry
group”, “labour union”, “political party”, “religion”, “other”, “don’t know”. Regional bond is usedas predictor of bonding networks, while hobby circles like bowling is used as predictor of bridging
network in many previous studies (Putnam: 2000; Naikakuhu: 2003; Fujisawa: 2010).Therefore
we use the percentage of respondents who choose “neighbor” as the predictor of bonding
network, and the percentage of respondents who choose “club, hobby circle, etc.” as thepredictor of bridging network.
Dependent variables
Most of social Indicators are objective data, but as QOL (Quality Of Life) is more and moreemphasized, subjective indicators became more and more important, such as the feeling of
happiness and the satisfaction of life (Mieno: 2010). In this article, we will use “feeling of
happiness”, and “satisfaction of social welfare system” as the indicators of welfare.
The question of “feeling of happiness” is, “All things considered, would you say that you are
happy these days? (SA)”, the answers are “1 very happy”, “2 quite happy”, “3 neither happy nor
unhappy”, “4 not too happy”, “5 very happy”, “9 don’t know”. We reverse the score of theanswers, and take the average as the score of “feeling of happiness” of each country (region).
The question of “satisfaction of social welfare system” is, “Please tell me how satisfied ordissatisfied you are with the following aspects of your life (SA for each)”, and the number l is“Social welfare system”, the answers are “very satisfied”, “some what satisfied”, “neither satisfied
nor dissatisfied”, “Somewhat dissatisfied”, “very dissatisfied”, “don’t know”. We reverse the scoreof the answers, and take the average as the score of “satisfaction of social welfare system” ofeach country (region).
Control variables
We also include a series of control variable that could affect the “feeling of happiness” and“satisfaction of social welfare system” in the analysis of hypothesis 2. We will control for gender,
age, marital status, education, and household income. Gender is a dummy variable with 0=male
and 1=female; age is continuous variable; marital status is a dummy variable with 0= singe anddivorced or widowed or other, 1=married; education is three scales of “high”, “mid” and “low”.
3)

Methods
First of all, we will measure social capital of each country (region). Social capital is measured byprincipal component analysis (Putnam: 2000). We do principal component analysis of generaltrust, reciprocity, bonding network and bridging network, using the 2003~2008 AsiaBarometer(Australia, Russia, America excluded). And we take the result of it as the score of social capital.
After we get social capital score, we focus on the 13 East Asian countries (region), and compare
the social capital score to test the hypothesis 1.
We take two steps to test hypothesis 2. First, we test the relevance of social capital and welfare
both in country-level analysis and individual-level analysis, because there are some previous
studies showing that there is a difference between country-level analysis and individual-level
analysis. Newton（2006）argues that, there was relevance between social capital and politicalsupport in country-level comparative analysis, but it can’t be tested in case study of four
countries (Finland, Sweden, News land, Japan). Subramanian（2002）reports that the significance5

level of country-level analysis was lower than that of individual-level analysis. After confirming
the relevance, we do multiple regression analysis in stepwise method to test whether social
capital promotes welfare or not.
4. Results and Discussion
4.1 Social Capital in East Asia (Test of hypothesis 1)
The result of Principal component analysis of social capital is presented in table 4-1-1, and thescores of general trust, reciprocity, bonding network, bridging network, social capital, feeling of
happiness and satisfaction of social welfare system are summarized in table 4-1-2.
Table 4-1-1 Result of Principal component analysis
Social capital
Factor loading
Trust

0.76

Reciprocity

0.72

Bridging NW

0.75

Bonding NW

0.40

Contribution ratio

45.24%

Notes:“Trust” is short for general trust, “NW” is short for network, the same as the following tables.
Table 4-1-2 Score summary
Satisfaction
Trust

Reciprocity

Bonding

Bridging

SocialFeeling ofof social

NW

NW

capitalhappiness

welfaresystemCambodia

0.04

0.23

0.80

0.21

-0.09

3.17

3.25

China

0.60

0.62

0.38

0.15

1.63

3.72

2.72

Hong Kong

0.34

0.41

0.88

0.21

1.25

3.53

3.18

Indonesia

0.23

0.63

0.66

0.03

0.18

3.80

3.81

Japan

0.44

0.36

0.38

0.22

0.88

3.69

2.93

Laos

0.23

0.24

0.67

0.11

-0.32

3.75

3.55

Malaysia

0.14

0.38

0.61

0.10

-0.30

4.05

3.68

Philippines

0.12

0.30

0.31

0.03

-1.32

4.07

3.51

Singapore

0.34

0.43

0.47

0.12

0.34

4.00

3.62

South Korea

0.66

0.50

0.44

0.22

1.93

3.48

2.62

Taiwan

0.40

0.49

0.45

0.24

1.30

3.55

2.78

Thailand

0.25

0.23

0.53

0.05

-0.75

3.88

3.49

Vietnam

0.25

0.60

0.78

0.12

0.83

3.95

3.29

Hypothesis 1, there is a large quantity of social capital in every East Asian country, whichindicates the high quantity and homogeneity of social capital in the East Asia.
We can test hypothesis 1 by diagramming the social capital in East Asia, to see whether the6East Asian countries all has high level in quantity. Figure 4-1-1 displays the social capital scores ofEast Asian countries (region). It is clear that, there is quite different among the countries in East
Asia. We can’t see high level of quantity in every country nor homogeneity through the result.
Figure 4-1-1 Social capital in East Asia

Figure 4-1-2

Social capital in four dimensions

If we focus on East Asian countries, we will find that Northeast Asian countries (South Korea,
China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan) and Southeast countries (Vietnam, Singapore, Indonesia,
Cambodia, Malaysia, Laos, Thailand, Philippines) can be divided into two groups clearly by theline of 0.85.
To discuss the homogeneity, we look into the context of social capital in East Asian countries.
Figure 4-1-2 displays the social capital of East Asian countries in four dimensions: general trust,reciprocity, bonding network and bridging network.
7

In the dimension of general trust, South Korea has highest score, and Cambodia has the lowest
score. Northeast countries (regions) have higher level in common. On the contrary, Southeast
Asian countries have lower level, except Singapore.
In the dimension of reciprocity, the top 3 is Indonesia, China and Vietnam. Comparing
Northeast Asia with Southeast Asia, we can find that, Northeast Asia (except Japan) have higher
level of reciprocity, while Southeast Asia is divided into two groups: Indonesia, Vietnam,
Singapore and Malaysia have higher level of reciprocity, but Thailand, Philippines, Cambodia andLaos have lower level of reciprocity.
In the dimension of bonding network, the top 3 is Hong Kong, Cambodia, Vietnam, and thebottom 3 is Philippines, Japan and China. Northeast Asia (except Hong Kong) has lower level ofbonding network, while Southeast Asia (except Philippines and Singapore) has higher level ofbonding network.
In the dimension of bridging network, the top 3 is Taiwan, South Korea and Cambodia, and thebottom 3 is Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand. Northeast Asian countries have higher score, on
the contrary, Southeast Asian countries, except Cambodia and Singapore, have lower level ofbridging network.
The notable features between Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia in social capital can besummarized into Table 4-1-3.
These results lead to the conclusion that, the hypothesis 1 is not proved from our data.
Table 4-1-3
Northeast
Asia
Southeast
Asia

Social capital

Trust

High

High

Low
(Singapore,
Vietnam)Reciprocity

Bonding NW

High

Low

(Japan)(Hong Kong)

Low

Divided into high(Singapore)group and Low group

High(Philippines,
Singapore)

Bridging NW
High

Low(Cambodia,
Singapore)Note: ( ) refer to exceptions
4.2 Relation between SC and Social Welfare (Test of Hypothesis 2)
Hypothesis 2, social capital promotes welfare.
To test hypothesis 2, we take two steps. Firstly we test the relevance between social capitaland feeling of happiness, and satisfaction of social welfare system. After that we test whethersocial capital affects welfare by multiple regression analysis inputting control variables.
Table 4-2-1 shows the Pearson’s Correlation coefficient of social capital and feeling of
happiness, and satisfaction of social welfare system. At first sight, the coefficient of feeling of
happiness and bridging network, and the coefficient of satisfaction of social welfare system andsocial capital is negative. Does it really mean social capital don’t promote welfare but reduce it?
Newton (2006) reported that the result of case study was different from the result of statistic
analysis in country-level. And Subramanian（2002）reported that the significance level ofcountry-level analysis was lower than that of individual-level analysis. To see whether social
capital really reduces welfare, we do the multi-level analysis1 to check it.
1

Multi-level analysis in this paper doesn’t refer to hierarchical linear model, just means analysis in different levelsof country and individual.
8

Table 4-2-1 Correlation coefficient in country-level analysis
Trust
Feeling of happiness

Reciprocity

Bridging NW

Bonding NWSocial capital-0.1960.102-.736**-0.323-0.46-.775**-0.276-.786**

0.31-.788**

Satisfaction of social
welfare system
n=13**: p<0.01

Table 4-2-2 shows the result of correlation coefficient of feeling of happiness and social capitalin every East Asian country (region). It’s clear that the coefficient of feeling of happiness andsocial capital is positive in every East Asian country (region) except Cambodia. And we can findthat there are some differences between Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia, when we look deep
into the coefficient of the four factors of social capital.
Within the four factors of social capital, the coefficient with trust is significantly positive inevery East Asian country (region) except Cambodia. In Northeast Asia, the coefficient is positive inall of the Northeast Asian countries (regions), South Korea (0.133), Japan (0.128), Hong Kong
(0.125), Taiwan (0.115), and China (0.079). On the contrary, the coefficient is positive in Singapore(0.118), Philippines (0.78), Laos (0.068), Indonesia (0.065), and Thailand (0.051). But it’s not
significant in Cambodia, Malaysia and Vietnam. We also can find that the coefficient in Northeast
Asia is stronger than that in Southeast Asia. The coefficient with reciprocity is positive in every
East Asian country (region) except Cambodia and Hong Kong. And we also can see that thecoefficient in Northeast Asia is stronger than that in Southeast Asia, except that Singapore has thehighest coefficient. The relation between feeling of happiness and bonding network or bridging
network is weaker. We can only find positive coefficient with bonding network in Hong Kong
(0.088), Singapore (0.067) and Japan (0.043), and with bridging network in Hong Kong (0.116),
Malaysia (0.070), Korea (0.049) and Japan (0.042).
Table 4-2-3 shows that the coefficient of satisfaction of social welfare system with social capitalin individual-level analysis is also positive in every East Asian country (region). The coefficientwith trust is positive in every Northeast Asian country (region) except Hong Kong: Taiwan (0.172),
Japan (0.137), China (0.80), and South Korea (0.042). On the contrary, you can only find it positivein Thailand (0.078) and Vietnam (0.041) in Southeast Asia. The coefficient with reciprocity is
positive in every East Asian country (region) except Cambodia, and you can also find it stronger inNortheast Asia than in Southeast Asia in some degree. The coefficient with bonding network is
found positive in Singapore (0.100), Cambodia (0.067), Malaysia (0.057) and Vietnam (0.040), but
negative in Japan (-0.055), Taiwan (-0.006). The coefficient with bridging network is positive in
Taiwan (0.080) and China (0.037), and negative in Malaysia (-0.054).

9

Table 4-2-2 correlations of feeling of happiness with social capital (individual-level)
Country

Trust

Reciprocity Bonding NW

Cambodia

-.002

China

.079

**

.116

Hong Kong

.125

**

Indonesia

.065

**

Japan

Bridging NW

-.015

.030

.037

**

.034*

.028

.025

.088**

.116

.063

**

.038

-.007

.128

**

.119

**

.043**

.042

Laos

.068

**

.065

**

-.021

-.013

Malaysia

.012

.051

*

.016

.070

Philippines

.078

**

.069

**

-.017

.016

Singapore

.118

**

.140

**

.067**.023

South Korea

.133

**

.124

**

-.003

.049

Taiwan

.115

**

.129

**

.000

-.036

Thailand

.051

*

.041

*

-.026

-.010

.017

**

.022

-.013

Vietnam*: p<0.05

.052

**

*

**

*

**: p<0.01

Table 4-2-3 correlations of satisfaction of social welfare system with social capital(individual-level)
Trust Reciprocity Bonding NW

Bridging NW

**

.019

**

.006

.037

*

.027

.036

Cambodia

-.010

.028

.067

China

.080

**

.160

Hong Kong

.052

.071

Indonesia

.017

.062

**

-.006

-.010

Japan

.137

**

.171

**

-.055**

.000

Laos

.047

.115

**

-.012

.049

Malaysia

.022

.128

**

.057**-.054

Philippines

.024

.097

**

-.017

-.027

.100**

.011

*

**

Singapore

.034

.108

**

South Korea

.042

*

.095

**

.018

.004

Taiwan

.172

**

.186

**

-.006

*

.080

Thailand

.078

**

.131

**

.021

-.027

.121

**

.040*

.024

Vietnam*: p<0.05.041***: p<0.01

10*

We got totally different results in country-level analysis and individual-level, and the questionis that why and which is right?
Why is it different in country-level and individual-level analysis? One may notice that bothfeeling of happiness and satisfaction of social welfare system are subjective indicators, which
related to expectation of them. Expectation towards welfare or well-being in developed countries
is usually higher than in developing countries. Under such influence, we can’t predict the effect ofsocial capital or economic capital upon the feeling of happiness and satisfaction, because theexpectation will increase when social capital or economic capital rise. Therefore this may be one
explanation that expectation influences the result of country-level analysis.
In contrast, we can consider that it’s the same within one country (region) in cross – national
comparative analysis. It means that the influence of expectation can be excluded. There is also
some previous studies indicated that it is more accurate of individual-level analysis thancountry-level analysis (Subramanian: 2002).
Accordingly, we take the result of individual-level analysis as our conclusion, which proves therelevance of social capital with welfare. Next, we will see whether social capital effect on welfare
or not in individual-level analysis, by multiple regression analysis inputting control variables suchas gender, age, marital status, education and household income.
Table 4-2-4 is the result of multiple regression analysis of feeling of happiness. We can find that,trust is the most effective indicator in Japan (0.159), Philippines (0.180) , and also effective
indicator in China (0.087), Hong Kong (0.173), Laos (0.124), Singapore (0.106), South Korea(0.157), Taiwan (0.147), and Thailand (0.107); reciprocity is the most effective indicator in China(0.159), Indonesia (0.119), and Singapore (0.183), and also effective in Japan (0.134), Laos (0.103),
Philippines (0.123), South Korea (0.143), Taiwan (0.171) and Vietnam (0.082); bonding network is
the most effective indicator in Hong Kong, and also effective China (0.066) and Singapore (0.183),
but it’s not significant in other countries (regions); bridging network is the most effective
indicator in Malaysia (0.173), and also significant in Hong Kong (0.129), but it’s not significant inother countries (regions). It is obvious that social capital has a significant effect upon the feelingof happiness.
Table 4-2-5 is the result of multiple regression analysis of satisfaction of social welfare system.
It is obvious that reciprocity is the most effective indicator in every country (region) except
Cambodia, while Cambodia’s most effective indicator is bonding network, which means social
capital is the most effective indicator of satisfaction of social welfare system.
In conclusion, hypothesis 2 that social capital promotes welfare has been proved right.
Thus, there is still an important finding we haven’t discussed. In the relation of social capitaland welfare, trust and reciprocity appear more effective than bonding network or bridging
network. Inaba (2005) grouped general trust and norms of reciprocity into public good, thenetwork between individuals or organizations into private good, and the trust and norms incertain group into club good. According to this classification, it may indicate that public goodsocial capital is more effective than the private good social capital.

11

Table4-2-4Genderresult of multiple regression analysis of feeling of happiness
Cambodia

China-0.1180.092

Hong Kong

Indonesia

Japan-0.0760.111

Age-0.003-0.005

Marital status

0.289

0.429

Education

0.081

0.078

0.156

Income

0.093

0.122

Trust

0.087

0.173

Reciprocity

0.159

Bonding NW

0.066

Bridging NW
R Square

Laos

0.050

Philippines

0.075

0.091

0.087

0.067

0.068

0.22

0.091

0.159

0.124

0.119

0.134

0.103

0.088

Singapore

0.065

South Korea

Taiwan

0.16

0.181

-0.005

-0.01

0.178

0.292

0.161

-0.131Thailand

Vietnam-0.004-0.005

0.117

0.448
0.051

0.093
0.086

0.128

0.180

0.106

0.157

0.147

0.123

0.183

0.143

0.171

0.093

0.082

0.034

0.112

0.107
0.082

0.129

0.245
0.129

0.016

Malaysia

0.173
0.026

0.091

0.054

0.01

0.027

0.044

Notes:
1.

Multiple regression analysis is done by stepwise method, and the models shown are the models which have the most variables of each country (region)2.

Coefficients shown are significant at p<0.01

12

0.016

0.06

Table4-2-5

result of multiple regression analysis of satisfaction of social welfare system
Cambodia

China-0.007

Education
IncomeHong Kong

Indonesia

Japan

Laos

Malaysia

Philippines

Singapore

South Korea

0.007-0.0060.005-0.1820.048-0.095-0.107

0.162

TaiwanThailand

Vietnam

GenderAge
Marital status

Trust

0.083

Reciprocity

0.307

Bonding NW

0.120

0.126

0.107

0.139

0.157

0.03

0.270

0.129
0.277

0.090

0.052

0.088

0.180

Bridging NW
R Square-0.065-0.154

0.006

0.013

0.040

0.209

0.200

0.089
0.158

-0.159

0.027

0.019

0.199

0.165

0.036

0.019

Notes:
1.

Multiple regression analysis is done by stepwise method, and the models shown are the models which have the most variables of each country (region)2.

Coefficients shown are significant at p<0.01

13

0.244

0.216

0.041

0.015

0.202

0.151

0.008

0.229

0.044

5. Conclusions
The two hypotheses we have examined here are the premises of the discussion of “East Asian
Welfare Society Model”. Hypothesis 1: there is a large quantity of social capital in every East Asian
country; and hypothesis 2: social capital promotes welfare. The results disprove hypothesis 1 andconfirm hypothesis 2. Therefore is it justified to assume the invalidity of the discussion about the“East Asian Welfare Society Model”? Not necessarily. What can we draw from the findings wehave got? At least, two important points need to be noted.
First of all, there is a significant difference between Northeast and Southeast Asia. As we haveseen, the level of trust, reciprocity and bridging networks in Northeast Asia are higher than thosein Southeast Asia, while the level of bonding networks in Southeast Asia are higher than in
Northeast Asia. As for the quantity of social capital and relevance with welfare, they are morehomogenous in Northeast Asia, but quite diverse in Southeast Asia. Consequently this may
indicate that it is more valid to focus on Northeast Asia when we discuss the “East Asian Welfare
Society Model”.
Secondly, we have found that public good social capital (trust and reciprocity) affects welfare
more than private good social capital (bonding network and bridging network) does. As we havementioned Northeast Asia has a higher level of trust and reciprocity, which means Northeast Asia
has a higher level of public good social capital. On the other hand, Southeast Asia has a higher
level of bonding networks, but a lower level of bridging networks. It may imply the possibility of“Northeast Asian Welfare Society Model”.
However, how to make practice use of social capital in welfare policy making? Can we get thesame conclusion using objective indicators of welfare? All of these questions are still unsettled,
and it requires further effort on this issue.
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