Social Capital, Social Networking, Financial Accessibility And Economic Wellbeing Of Households In Soroti District

Abstract

The study assessed the relationship between social capital, social networking, financial accessibility and economic household’s wellbeing in Soroti District. Four specific objectives guided the study; to examine the relationship between social capital, and economic household’s wellbeing in Soroti District, to establish the relationship between social capital, financial accessibility and economic household’s wellbeing in Soroti District, analyse the relationship between social networking, financial accessibility, and economic household’s wellbeing in Soroti District and to ascertain the factor structure of social capital, social networking and financial accessibility on economic household’s wellbeing in Soroti District. The study adopted a cross sectional and descriptive research design using both the quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection. A sample of 399 respondents was selected from 196,732 target population with the help of Slovin’s formula) The study used descriptive statistics (Mean and SD), Pearson’s linear correlation coefficient, and regression model were used in data analysis of data collected through questionnaire. The main result indicated that effect of social capital, social networking and financial accessibility all combined predicted 59.7% of the variance of economic household’s wellbeing in Soroti District. There was a significant positive relationship between social capital and economic household’s wellbeing at (r=.634, p<.01); a significant positive relationship between social capital and financial accessibility (r=.562, p<.01), while between financial accessibility and economic household’s wellbeing (r=.597, p<.01). A significant positive relationship between social networking and financial accessibility (r=.574, p<.01), while between financial accessibility and economic household’s wellbeing (r=.597, p<.01). The study in general concluded that economic household’s wellbeing in Soroti District, can be improved through a combination of social capital, social networking and financial accessibility, though social capital explains it more than the other variables, followed by social networking and lastly financial accessibility. The study recommends that building generalized norms are important since there is relationship between generalized norms and access to credit finance, people in Soroti District and the whole country at large need to demonstrate high social capital through showing interpersonal trust, norms and reciprocity in the social groups they belong when doing business. There is need to conduct social interactions and every day sociability and that the entrepreneurs and the local community should value trust in terms of providing informal and formal sources of credit which leads to improved economic household livelihood. Similar studies should be conducted on other high developing districts in Uganda like Kampala, Mbarara, Mbale and Gulu districts where there a lot of technology startups/enterprises since they tend to rely more social capital to access credit finance but also to access intellectual capital in their operations and further studies need to be undertaken to find out how long term or short term relationships affect the access to credit and when such relationship must be brought to an end