Social Capital and Resilience to the Covid-19 crisis. Evidence for senior Europeans

Has social capital positively contributed to human resilience during the Covid-19 crisis? The pandemic provoked by this virus has hugely impacted on people mental health, increasing depression and sadness. The aim of this thesis is to study whether social capital, measured with trust in others, has buffered these negative effects, decreasing the probability of worsening the own psychological condition. Focusing on European seniors and relying on the SHARE dataset, I find a positive and significant relation between trust in others and individual resilience. These results are valid both with the individual level measure of social capital and with the aggregate level one, computed by NUTS 1. Furthermore, considering the second indicator, the relation is proved also with IV methodology, taking into account this way endogeneity and strengthening the claim for causal effects. Therefore, my thesis provides empirical evidence for European seniors of a causal effect of social capital on human resilience to the Covid-19 crisis.