Abstracts

Social capital is recognized as a resource determining the integration into mainstream society and quality of life of married immigrant women. This study was focused on identifying the effects of the related-variables on social capital and its sub-items, such as trust, reciprocity, civic participation consciousness, and social connection network, determining the effects of the sub-factors of social capital on life satisfaction and sub-areas, such as closeness between ideal and reality, excellence of life condition, satisfaction with life, accomplishment in life, and acceptance of life revival, using the scale reported by Diener et al.(1985). For this purpose, the data of 401 people from rural multicultural households were analyzed. The major findings were as follows. First, family support and local society support variable had separately the greatest effect on the total social capital and its four sub-items. Above this, the age variable affected negatively the civic participation consciousness and social connection network sub-items. The bridging social tie variable had a positive effect on the civic participation consciousness sub-item. Second, both the trust and social connection network sub-item of social capital had significant effect on the total life satisfaction and its four sub-areas except for accomplishment in the life sub-area. The accomplishment in life sub-area was affected by only the trust sub-item of social capital. Based on the results, this study proposed plans to improve the social capital and life satisfaction of the women and a plan for follow-up studies was suggested.