Individuals and households often participate in a myriad of organisational activities and engage socially with others in their communities on a range of issues. The term “social cohesion” refers to these forms of social capital. This conceptualisation follows from the work of Robert Putnam, and refers to the different ways that members of a community interact with one another, thereby providing “a map of a community's associational life, and thus with it a sense of its civic health.” (Grootaert et al, 2004:3). Collecting this kind of data allows one to examine the extent to which social capital contributes towards household welfare and poverty reduction, as well as examining the determinants of social capital. The National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS) provides an important opportunity to examine the impact of social capital on well-being and social cohesion since data on participation in community and civic organisations has been collected in Wave 1 in Section M of the adult questionnaire, along with information on life satisfaction, happiness, trust, perceived income status of the household and expectations concerning economic mobility in the future.