男女有別？社會資本使用於政治場域的類型初探

Abstract

社會資本被認為有利於民主運作，就個體層次來說，個人的政治興趣、對政治事務的瞭解、政治參與的技能，都可在社團參與過程中培養。但由性別角度觀之，社會資本是否有助女性提升政治意識和參與，學界尚未有共識。本研究試圖透過觀察兩性社團參與，檢視台灣社會資本性別化的現象，及社團參與和政治參與之間的關係。本研究首先由1990至2012年男女社團參與趨勢，發現性別差距長期存在，但日益縮減。再由2012單年度資料檢視兩性社團參與和廣義／狹義政治參與間的關係，研究結果顯示無論男女，參與社團者的廣義和狹義政治參與程度明顯較高。本研究進一步試著建構社會資本使用於政治場域的類型，依據社會位置（高／低）與主要生活圈（公／私領域），將民眾分為四類，研究發現：個人藉由社團參與累積社會資本有助於提升各類民眾的公民參與；使用於傳統政治場域的情形雖然看似男女有別，社團參與僅有助於提升以男性為主的兩類民眾（公／高；公／低）的傳統政治參與程度，但細究四類民眾內部的參與性別差異，發現除了公／高者之外，此分類確實可解釋社會資本與廣義／狹義政治參與的關係，相同類型的男女有著對應其所屬類型相似的參與情形。換言之，性別並非解釋社會資本使用差異的主要因素。

Most of the studies indicate that one of the advantages for social capital is it can stimulate democratic development. At the individual level, one`s political interest, political knowledge and citizen skill can be brought up through participating in the communities. However, there is no consensus on whether women use their social capital in the same way as men. This study thus attempts to focus on the relationship between community participation and political engagement for the gendering social capital in Taiwan. With the empirical data analysis used in this study, we have two findings as the follows. First, regardless of the gender, people who involve in a community will engage more positively in civic and traditional political activities. Secondly, by classifying the observations according to the social status (high/ low) and their main living area (public/private sphere), we found that people, except those who have high social status and live in the public sphere, will have the same pattern of spending social capital in political engagement when they possess the same social status and have the same main living area. In other words, gender is not the main explanation of the difference in using social capital within the traditional political engagement.