Gendered Social Capital – A Case Study of Sports and Music Associations

Civic engagement, measured in terms of aggregated data on e.g. membership of voluntary associations, is commonly used as an indicator of social capital. By way of taking a gender perspective and applying a qualitative method, this paper ar-gues for the importance of nuancing between different contents of voluntary en-gagement, as these can have impact on the quality of social capital built. Uneven gender relations within and between associations are furthermore seen to have consequences for the power of built up networks to influence the officially pro-moted line of local development. Earlier research has been able to establish a connection on an aggregated level between a lively participation in voluntary organisations and a flourishing economy. Little knowledge exists about the connection on the individual level, though, i.e. about the relationship between a person´s engagement in the voluntary sector and his or her position on the labour market / in local business. This paper is concerned with gender aspects of this relationship. It is argued to be more com