assets either because membership give them access to additional resources or because being a member increases the maternal social network enhancing the likelihood of getting external support from other community members, the _support pathway_ .<sup>6</sup> Finally, social dynamics might play an important role in changing and shape mothers’ aspirations. As discussed by Appadurai (2004) and Ray (2006), poverty is often strongly associated with low aspirations. Escaping poverty might not be considered a feasible option because of their own experiences and the experiences of those that are close to them. An active participation to community organizations and their initiatives might constitute a unique opportunity to learn about the positive experiences of other members. Social interactions might make mothers feel like they are able to control their own lifes and plan their own future and the future of their children, the _empowerment pathway_ (Macours and Vakis, 2008).

Past studies generally fail to estimate a causal relationship between social capital and health and provide descriptive evidence on this relationship. A considerable number of studies point to an association between individual social capital and various aspects of own physical and psychological health (Hyyppa and Maki, 2001; Lindstrom, 2004; Mohseni and Lindstrom, 2007; Pevalin and Rose, 2003; Rose, 2000; Kawachi et al., 1997; Veenstra, 2000; Lindstrom et al., 2001; Hurtado et al., 2011). But just few of them look at maternal social capital and the child health.

Nobles and Frankenberg (2009) using data from Indonesia find a positive association between maternal participation and child health only for children from relatively disadvantaged backgrounds. Carter and Maluccio (2003) explore the role of household social capital as a protective factor against idiosyncratic economic shocks in South Africa. Those households with stronger ties in the community are more likely to be able to cope with economic/financial losses and this reflects on children nutritional status. Kanaiaupuni et al. (2005) look at mothers’ social networks in Northern Mexico and find that social interactions help sustain healthier children especially among economically marginalized families.

Some previous work has been done using YL to study the association between maternal social capital and child health. Moestue et al. (2007) and Galab and Lives (2006), using the Andhra Pradesh sample find a positive association between a child height-for-age z-score and the size, and the literacy rate of the maternal network. Harpham et al. (2006), explore the association between maternal social capital and child physical and mental health in Vietnam. Consistent with the findings of the present analysis, they find stronger relations between maternal social capital and the health of 1 year old children than 8 year old children.

None of these papers using YL exploits the longitudinal setting of the data to study the causal effect of maternal participation. Furthermore, there are no papers on individual social capital and child health using the Peruvian sample. To the best of my knowledge, the only paper related to individual social capital in Peru (Cueto et al., 2005) analyzes the association between cognitive and structural capital measured at the community level and children’s educational progress and achievement. The only positive association they find is between cognitive social capital and children’s educational progress. They find that cohesive communities which experience more trust

> 6 However, the opposite might also occur: those who have a wider network might also be more likely to be involved in any community organization.

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