Impact and Discriminating Ability of Life Style Factors on Social Capital of Individuals

Life style factors are robust in influencing the behavior of individuals across the globe, Social capital refers to the institutions, relationships and norms that shape the quality and quantity of a society's social interactions. An increasing evidence shows that social cohesion is critical for societies to prosper economically and for development to be sustainable. This study examines the role and discriminant ability of life style factors in predicting the social capital variations of educators. The population study includes the college level educators in the state of Kerala in India. Sample sizes of 434 educators were surveyed with validated instruments to generate information pertaining to life style and social capital. The tool used to measure social capital is extracted from the Social Capital Assessment Tool developed by World Bank. The result suggests that, three life style factors are significant in predicting the social capital and these factors have the discriminant ability to predict the variations in social capital of educators.