Exploring Social Capital

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policy-impact
data-analysis
place-based-change
Exploration of novel Social Connections data to support Lloyds Bank Foundation with their place-based change work
Author

Just Knowledge Team

Published

October 17, 2025

Exploring Social Capital

Jolyon Miles-Wilson

17-10-2025

We’re currently exploring some opportunities to support Lloyds Bank Foundation with their place-based change work using novel data on Social Capital, based on data from Facebook.1 The aim is to understand how social capital can help identify and shape development stategies for areas at a hyperlocal level.

The Data

The dataset is based on 20.5 million active UK Facebook users with at least 100 friends, aged 25-64, which represents approximately 58% of the 25-64 UK population.2 It was produced through a collaboration between Meta, Behavioural Insights Team, the Royal Society of Arts, Stripe Partners, Neighbourly Lab, Opportunity Insights, New York University and Stanford University. During our time at the RSA, both Celestin and I were closely involved in this work.

The data contain many variables measuring different facets of social capital. For now, we focus on just one: Economic Connectedness. Economic Connectedness represents the proportion of friends of people of low socioeconomic status (SES) who are of high SES. In the seminal work in the US context by Chetty et al. (2022),3 Economic Connectedness was found to strongly predict upward social mobility.

The National View

Social capital is stronger in the UK than it is in the US. But it is qualitatively different; in the UK it is driven by hobby groups, whereas in the US it is driven by religious groups.

While the overall picture is strong, social capital varies across England and Wales.

The Regional Picture

Social Capital varies from place to place, which may make it a particularly useful metric for judging the strengths and needs of local areas. Below, we can see how social capital varies between and within regions.4

This map shows Economic Connectedness by Local Authority District for the North East.

Purple values indicate lower Economic Connectedness.

Whiter values indicate higher Economic Connectedness.

This map shows Economic Connectedness by Local Authority District for the West Midlands.

Purple values indicate lower Economic Connectedness.

Whiter values indicate higher Economic Connectedness.

This map shows Economic Connectedness by Local Authority District for the East of England.

Purple values indicate lower Economic Connectedness.

Whiter values indicate higher Economic Connectedness.

Social Capital is Hyper-local

Zooming in even further highlights that social capital can be hyperlocal. Below, we visualise small areas within local authorities to show how social connections vary from neighbourhood to neighbourhood.

This map shows Economic Connectedness by Middle layer Super Output Area for Redcar and Cleveland.

Purple values indicate lower Economic Connectedness.

Whiter values indicate higher Economic Connectedness.

This map shows Economic Connectedness by Middle layer Super Output Area for Telford and Wrekin.

Purple values indicate lower Economic Connectedness.

Whiter values indicate higher Economic Connectedness.

This map shows Economic Connectedness by Middle layer Super Output Area for Great Yarmouth.

Purple values indicate lower Economic Connectedness.

Whiter values indicate higher Economic Connectedness.

The Work continues

We aim to further explore how these novel data on social capital can be put to use to help improve social outcomes. Stay tuned by subscribing to our newsletter below to hear about our progress.

Footnotes

  1. https://data.humdata.org/dataset/uk-social-capital-atlas↩︎

  2. Harris, T., Iyer, S., Rutter, T., Chi, G., Johnston, D., Lam, P., Makinson, L., Silva, A., Wessel, M., Liou, M.-C., Wang, Y., Zaman, Q., & Bailey, M. (2025). Social Capital in the United Kingdom: Evidence from Six Billion Friendships. OSF. https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/kb7dy_v1↩︎

  3. Chetty, R., Jackson, M. O., Kuchler, T., Stroebel, J., Hendren, N., Fluegge, R. B., Gong, S., Gonzalez, F., Grondin, A., Jacob, M., Johnston, D., Koenen, M., Laguna-Muggenburg, E., Mudekereza, F., Rutter, T., Thor, N., Townsend, W., Zhang, R., Bailey, M., … Wernerfelt, N. (2022). Social capital I: Measurement and associations with economic mobility. Nature, 608(7921), 108–121. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04996-4↩︎

  4. We focus here only on this handful of areas because these are the places where some of Lloyds Bank Foundation’s work is already focused. The same exercise can be done for any place in the UK↩︎

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