Young Australians' neighbourhood social capital

Social capital is often used as a reference to create policy and interventions to improve social well-being of the community members. This paper focus on whether social cohesion and perceived neighbourhood safety make a difference to young people’s levels of neighbourhood social capital. Young Australians and permanent residents aged 16 to 25 (N=283) participated in this study through an online survey. The findings support previous literature, which found cohesive neighbours are more trusting than less cohesive neighbours. The results also indicate that the young people who perceived their neighbourhood as safe were relatively more trusting than those who perceived their neighbourhood as less safe. These suggest that creating neighbourhood ‘togetherness’ and preventions on crime promotes could promote more neighbourhood social capital.