Child health and mothers’ social capital in Indonesia through crisis

Social capital has been shown to be positively associated with a range of health outcomes, yet few studies have explored the association between mothers’ social capital and child health. We examine the relationship between mothers' access to social capital via participations in community activities and their children's health. Instrumental variable estimator is used to deal with reverse causality. Data come from the Indonesian Family Life Surveys (IFLS) of 1997, 2000, and 2007. We find strong evidence for the association between mother's social capital and child health before and after the Asian financial crisis. In contrast, there is no relation between mother's social capital and child health during the crisis. The results suggest that the link between mother's social capital and child health is severely ruptured during the period of the crisis, possibly by reducing the number of available community activities and the ability of mothers to participate in such activities.