Measurement of Social Capital with the Help of Time Use Surveys

The article highlights how recent discussions on the need for a new measurement of well-being and social progress and therefore for an extension of national accounts with supplementary measures have placed the measurement of unaccounted economic activities of and within households and thus of social capital on the agenda. It is in this sense that social capital will be understood in this paper: as the human activities that take place outside of monetized markets, but within households or in interaction with individuals living in other households, and which may provide the basis for the formation of trust in society. This paper argues that time use surveys can provide relevant and currently missing data on social capital.