Immigrants’ Social Capital and Labor Market Performance: The Effect of Social Ties on Earnings and Occupational Prestige*

Abstract

Objectives. While a growing body of literature investigates the role of social capital in the labor market outcomes of immigrants, the verdict is still out on whether or not reliance on social networks enhances or constrains labor market performance. This study explores the effect of relying on social ties to find a job on the hourly earnings and occupational prestige of new legal immigrants in the United States. Methods. Utilizing data from the New Immigrant Survey 2003 cohort, the effect on occupational outcomes of relying on social ties to locate a job is estimated using both ordinary least squares (OLS) regression and propensity score matching (PSM), to minimize observable selection bias. Propensity score matching is used to identify the treatment effect of using social contacts by comparing the outcomes of closely matched treatment and control groups. Results. Both OLS and PSM estimates indicate that using a close contact to find a job has a detrimental effect on earnings and occupational prestige. The effect of social capital, however, varies across groups. Particularly, while social capital has little or no effect on the labor market outcomes of black and Hispanic immigrants, it has a detrimental effect on the occupational prestige of Asian and white immigrants (the effect being stronger for Asians than for whites). Conclusion. Social capital research on immigrants' outcomes should, therefore, take caution in generalizing from group-specific research, as these findings point to contextual labor market effects of social capital.Immigrants are a rapidly growing demographic group in most industrialized democracies (Segal, Elliot, and Mayadas, 2010). In the United States, where foreign-born individuals makeup about 13 percent of the total population, a third of annual growth in population and about half of the growth in the labor force is attributable to immigration (Massey, 2010). As a result, interdisciplinary research on immigrants and their integration into host societies continues to be an important part of social science research. Numerous studies have examined factors that influence the economic integration of immigrants, particularly the determinants of labor market assimilation of newcomers. Studies have looked at such outcomes as self-employment (e.

Linguistic Integration and Immigrant Health: The Longitudinal Effects of Interethnic Social Capital

“…However, I was able to examine the correlations between the index and other proxy indicators of social network characteristics found in the NIS (results available on request). One such indicator is whether or not the respondent found employment with the help of a relative, which may be an indicator of reliance on coethnic networks (Sanders, Nee, and Sernau 2002; Tegegne 2015). A second indicator is the percentage coethnic and percentage native-born at the religious organization for respondents who reported religious involvement.…”

Impacto de la educación superior en la movilidad social de un grupo de egresados de la Universidad de Antioquia

“…Esta línea abarca discusiones en torno a la importancia de los vínculos de distinto tipo para el acceso al trabajo (Olaya, 2019, p. 1); y trata de examinar los efectos de confiar en los lazos sociales débiles (Esteban, 2015) y fuertes en la búsqueda de empleo y en las consecuencias que tiene ello en el mercado profesional de los inmigrantes (Tegegne, 2015). Este campo estudia la perspectiva de la teoría red, donde las relaciones sociales cumplen un papel muy activo en procesos de inserción laboral, en los diferentes contextos y grupos, especialmente las redes familiares (Picard & Zenou, 2015;Reis & Ferreira, 2015), donde la confianza es el factor fundamental de tales procesos Sánchez, 2018).…”

Started from the Bottom Now We're Where? African‐American and Latino Niching in Gulf Coast Metros

“…When studying the effects of residential concentration on Latino niching, researchers typically focus on co‐ethnically concentrated neighborhoods or enclaves. In enclaves, social and job information networks support the labor market participation of residents, and neighborhood networks encourage the concentration of ethnic groups, and especially the foreign born, in particular industries and occupations typically in close geographic proximity to local residential areas (Ellis, Wright, and Parks, ; Wright, Ellis, and Parks, ; Liu, , ; Wang, ; Aguilera, ; Tegegne, ). Enclaves do provide economic opportunities to groups, particularly those with more barriers to securing employment such as immigrants, but they often act to constrain these opportunities within particular low‐skill, low‐wage segments of the labor market (Ellis, Wright, and Parks, ; Wang, ).…”