Background1 Social Capital has become a concept of growing interest in the past two decades. Although originally elaborated by Coleman (1990), the major association has been with the work of Robert Putnam (Putnam.1995). The concept has deeply engaged political scientists and others, but has not been without its critics (van Deth. 2001; Durlauf. 2000). The presence of a high degree of social capital is argued to be one of the strong underpinnings of democracy (Fukayama. 2001). Social capital thus is argued to be the bedrock of functioning democracy, and the presence of varieties of civic and social associations is assumed to contribute to more active citizenship. In the West at least, and following Putnam, there is increasing concern about the declining participation of citizens in elections, together with concern that citizens are also less interested in participating in social and civic networks and associations. This is interpreted as the effect of declining social capital. Very little study of social capital has been carried in Zimbabwe, although it is implicit in the many and wide-ranging studies and discussions about the role of communities in Zimbabwean civic life. For example, nhimbi can be argued to be a social process relying on social capital (Tenson. 2017), and Operation Murambatsvina can be argued to be an event that was hugely destructive of social capital, as has been the many displacements that have taken place in the past two decades. It also is worth stressing the very important role played by women in community life, especially in the rural areas of Zimbabwe which can be argued to be the basis of strong social capital in the rural areas. A previous examination of social capital as one aspect of active citizenship suggested that the component of social capital, trust, operated differently between rural and urban citizens (RAU. 2015). Trust was defined as either intimate, about relationships with other citizens, or institutional, about relationships between citizens and duty bearers. Statistical analysis revealed a relationship between institutional trust and support for ZANU-PF, and there was no relationship between either form of trust, intimate or institutional, and a category of respondents that could be described as “active citizens”. Returning to the point about women, community life and possibly the major creators of social capital, it is worth noting that studies of women’s participation suggest that the rural-urban divide is highly relevant. Studies of middle class women indicate a strong disconnection for this group from community life, apart from attending church (RAU. 2017; RAU. 2016 (b)); RAU. 2016(a). Thus, it seemed worthwhile in view of the differences found between different groups of women to focus explicitly on women and social capital. A companion research study to the present report attempted a more detailed examination of social capital (RAU. 2018). A measure of social capital was constructed using six questions common to all three rounds, and tested this against seven measures of public interest and participation, as well as four demographic variables (age, residence, employment and education). The measures of public interest and participation were also constructed from questions common to all three rounds: access to information, freedoms, political participation, agency, support for democracy, and political trust. A seventh measure, lived poverty, was included to check for possible confounding on the residence variable: it cannot be assumed that poverty in Zimbabwe is wholly a feature of the rural areas in the current economic climate. 1 Report produced by Tony Reeler, Senior Researcher. 6