Why effects of social capital on health status differ between genders: considering the labor market condition

This paper explores how social capital is related with self-rated health status in Japan and how this relationship is affected by gender, using data for 3075 adult participants in the 2000 Social Policy and Social Consciousness (SPSC) survey. Controlling for endogenous bias, unobserved city size- and area-specific fixed effects, I find that social capital has a significant positive influence on health status for females but not for males. If samples are limited to persons with a job, social capital effects drastically decrease and the difference between genders diminishes. This empirical study provides evidence that people without a job can afford to allocate time to accumulate social capital and thereby improve their health status.