Beyond Parents: The Role of Sibling Social Capital in Self-Confidence in Emerging Adulthood

A robust literature focused on social capital created in the family has emphasized the efficacy of parental involvement in child, adolescent, and young adult development. Social capital created with and derived from parents has strong and consistent connections to academic achievement and attainments and pro-social behavior, as well as protective effects against delinquent behavior and mental health difficulties. Other forms of family social capital, however, are less well understood. In this paper, we explore the association between social capital built with and derived from siblings and self-confidence during emerging adulthood, including examining how sibling social capital built at different times might contribute to the development of self-confidence. We use restricted-use data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), with information on 3630 respondents who had siblings who were also study participants, and Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) models with robust standard errors to test our hypothesis that greater sibling social capital would be associated with greater self-confidence in adolescents and emerging adulthood, net of other forms of social capital and demographic characteristics. Our findings support that hypothesis, suggesting that social capital derived from siblings is another significant potential source of key resources during important developmental stages. In particular, sibling social capital has a significant correlation to the self-confidence of individuals transitioning to adulthood.