Social support systems play a crucial role in promoting young women’s well-being and their human rights fulfilment, not least in contexts where institutions are weak and socioeconomic and gender inequalities prevail. However, research on young women’s social networks and trust in their benevolent function is scarce. This study attempts to reduce this knowledge gap by exploring young Angolan women’s access to social capital and how it clustered and was associated with other living conditions. The data were derived from a cross-sectional study of 2,071 women, aged 18-24 years, from rural and urban areas in Huambo, Luanda and Lunda Sul provinces. The results included a univariate description of the participants socioeconomic and social capital characteristics stratified by province and residential area, an exploratory factor analysis of 17 social capital variables, and tests for associations between social capital factors and socioeconomic variables (literacy, household wealth, work and pregnancy), the latter measured by means of logistic regressions. The study revealed that the women in Luanda had generally better living conditions, those from Lunda Sul were worse off, and those from Huambo were often in between. The factor analysis’ identification of structural, cognitive, and applied factors aligned well with established research. Literate and wealthier participants often had higher structural but less cognitive social capital. Social capital measures showed less variability compared to literacy and household wealth. The social capital factors were distributed and associated differently with the socioeconomic attributes based on location. The study highlights the intricate relationship between social capital and other living conditions, conditional on where women live. It draws attention to the need for further investigations into which social spheres young women perceive as supportive. The study emphasises the importance of analysing social capital domains separately, appreciating links to other resources and local uniqueness in social capital-enhancing interventions.

The authors have declared no competing interest.

The work was supported by the Swedish Research Council under grant no. 2020-03102. The funding agency did not influence the design, conduct or analysis of the study.

I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained.

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The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below:

Ethical approval was obtained from the Ethics Committee Institutional Review Board of the Angolan Ministry of Health (24/C.E.). U/2021, 2021-07-07), the Ethics Committee at the Universidade Católica de Angola (Approvação 153, CEIH 230, 2021-06-30) and the Swedish Ethics Review Authority (Dnr 2022-06393-01, 2023-01-25).

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Data is made available upon reasonable request. The data set is not presently available on an external platform, as data management and analyses of the various components of the study remain in progress.