Social Capital Trends in Germany in the Face of the Covid-19 Pandemic: A Research Note

This research note reports social capital trends in Germany during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is based on a comparison of survey data from 2017/18 and 2020/21, i.e., trends reported here inform about changes of social capital levels during the “second lockdown” of the pandemic, when containment policies were in effect throughout the country. Findings point to stable levels of in-group trust, out-group trust and prosocial attitudes. At the same time, sociability orientations are lower and society is generally perceived as less solidary. Members in voluntary organizations have more social capital compared to non-members—this difference is found before as well as during the pandemic. Regarding that changes are generally small, it can be concluded that the pandemic did neither strengthen social capital considerably, nor did it lead to a massive overall decline of social capital. Copyright © 2022 Burrmann, Mutz, Sielschott and Braun.

The relevance of social capital indicators for member retention during the corona pandemic

Even before the corona pandemic, more and more sports clubs reported declining memberships, episodic engagement, and difficulties in recruiting and retaining volunteers. Given the complex constraints on sports clubs and social activities during the corona pandemic, the question arises as to how this exceptional social situation affected membership retention in clubs and the importance of social capital. This paper addresses a research gap by estimating membership commitment in the aftermath of the corona pandemic, focusing on the relevance of different social capital indicators. The empirical analyses are based on a representative population survey conducted in late 2020/early 2021. Membership retention of the sports club members remains quite high. Social capital indicators that are narrowly related to the sports club explain little in predicting member retention. In addition to perceived norms of reciprocity in the club, helpfulness and ingroup trust increase retention, while sociability orientation and outgroup trust decrease the likelihood of still being a member of the club after the pandemic. When all predictors are included, the model goodness of fit increases to almost 26%. In addition to a few sociodemographic characteristics, membership-related characteristics (e.g., crisis management of the association) contribute to the variance clarification. Willingness to help, outgroup trust, and a tendency towards sociability are the only significant social capital indicators in the overall model, although they contribute with considerable weights to the variance explanation.