Social Capital and Gambling: Evidence from Australia
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Social Capital and Gambling: Evidence from Australia Sefa Awaworyi Churchill1 · Lisa Farrell1
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2019
Abstract The prevalence of problem gambling in many countries necessitates research that examines factors influencing excessive and addictive consumption. We consider how social capital impacts gambling participation for a large representative sample of the Australian population. Specifically, we examine the association between social capital and gambling addiction using data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey. We address the endogeneity of social capital by instrumenting for social capital using an urban/ rural reversed measure of ethnic diversity. Our main findings suggest that higher levels of social capital are associated with lower gambling risks measured by the Problem Gambling Severity Index. This general finding is robust to alternative ways of measuring social capital and gambling, and alternative estimation approaches. We also find that the effect of social capital is stronger in the case of problem gamblers compared to gamblers in other risk categories. Keywords Gambling · PGSI · Social capital · Social cohesion
Introduction Many studies have sought to understand the pathways from normal to disruptive gambling behaviours, and the drivers and motivators that lead to excessive consumption, emphasis has been placed on factors such as socioeconomic status, demographic characteristics and cognitive frameworks, among others [see Bell and Boldero (2011) and Subramaniam et al. (2015) for recent reviews]. An issue that has received less attention in the literature This paper uses unit record data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey. The HILDA Project was initiated and is funded by the Australian Government Department of Social Services (DSS) and is managed by the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research (Melbourne Institute). The findings and views reported in this paper, however, are those of the authors and should not be attributed to either DSS or the Melbourne Institute. (Melbourne Institute). The findings and views reported in this paper, however, are those of the authors and should not be attributed to either DSS or the Melbourne Institute. * Sefa Awaworyi Churchill [email protected]; [email protected] Lisa Farrell [email protected] 1
School of Economics, Finance and Marketing, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC 3000, Australia
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Vol.:(0123456789)
Journal of Gambling Studies
is how social capital influences gambling behaviour. Specifically, does social capital have any implications for gambling behaviour? Are individuals more, or less, likely to gamble if they have higher social capital? What is the impact of social capital across the various gambling risk spectrums? The focus of this study is on answering these questions. The social environment has frequently been associated with addictive behaviours by researchers who recogn
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