Associations of individual social capital with subjective well-being and mental health among migrants: A survey from five cities in China

Abstract

Background: We aimed to examine the associations of cognitive and structural social capital with subjective well-being (SWB) and mental health among internal migrants in five cities in China. Methods: We conducted healthy cities surveys from June 2017 to April 2018. In total, 3038 migrants submitted surveys. Generalized linear regressions for SWB and logistic regressions for mental health were used to examine the associations of social capital, SWB and mental health after controlling for covariates. Results: The median level of SWB was 75.7 (interquartile range 62.9-85.7). Self-rated health and physical activity were positively associated with SWB. The SWB level among migrants who perceived high individual social cohesion was much higher than that of their counterparts (unstandardized coefficients, β=7.01 [95% confidence interval {CI} 5.82 to 8.21]). The prevalence of poor mental health was 10.0%. High social cohesion (odds ratio [OR] 0.32 [95% CI 0.24 to 0.44]) and high social participation (OR 0.77 [95% CI 0.57 to 0.97]) were significantly associated with a low ratio of poor mental health when compared with their counterparts. Conclusions: Cognitive social capital is positively associated with SWB, while both cognitive and structural social capitals were negatively associated with poor mental health. It is beneficial to migrants' mental health and SWB to promote social participation and social cohesion.