The Relation of Social Capital with Poverty

Achievement of the most important goal of development planes, that is Poverty reduction and security of social welfare for all citizens, needs in depth study of factors affecting poverty. In development literature, poverty is defined as lack of social participation and social exclusion is the main concept in the discussion. As such the notion of social capital in which participation is one of three main indicators could help to clarify the reasons of unsuccessful poverty reduction programs. This article presents part of the findings of a research which its basic questions are: does social capital relates to poverty and which of the three components of social capital has the significant relation. In responding to these questions, qualitative (focused group discussion and in depth interview) and quantitative methods (questionnaire) were applied. Two villages of similar development level from Varamin area in south of Tehran were selected. The area generally is characterized by social networks formed by forced migrations of ethnic groups and nomads during Pahlavi dynasty. They have kept their traditions, customs and values and have not fully integrated with other rural dwellers in the region. Following focused group discussions the “poverty” and “poor “was defined by people. They did not perceive poverty and deprivation only as lower level of income but lack of job security from agricultural activities, limited access to education, health services and housing. Based on research findings there is an inverse relation between poverty level and three indicators (participation, integration and trust) of social capital. Trust among rural people has been reported at the medium to upper level but trust towards government institutions was at the medium to lower level. People’s participation in decision making and implementation of development project has been very low and mostly instrumental but integration among them has been rated as high. It seems lack or lower level of participation of rural dwellers in the development and implementation of the government’s projects has resulted in lower level of trust between the two and the outcomes has not helped the economic situation of the families as well as the village. Also among the indices of integration scale, there is a significant relation between violent confrontations among rural dwellers and poverty. Therefore one can conclude conflict diminishes village resources and people’s time and energy for productive work. As a result, the village (Jalilabad) which reports higher level of trust and integration and social capital has lower level of poverty and the village (Karimabad) with lower level of social capital shows more indication of poverty.