Place, kinship, and employment

Abstract

This study explores the magnitude and composition of kinship ties at Swedish workplaces. By analysing official register data and illustrating findings from interviews with HR personnel at different workplaces, the following questions are discussed: How much kinship concentration is there today on the labour market in a modern Western society such as Sweden? How is the kin-based selection of workplace members structured by place? The study is based on an analysis of individually connected register information on all workplaces in Sweden in 2012. The number of individual links between relatives and couples at an average workplace amounts to 14% of the number of employees as derived from 310, 000 couples and pairs of relatives among 4.3 million workers. So, even today in Sweden, kinship is a common phenomenon observable for most workers at most workplaces. Of all such connected pairs of kin at workplaces, more than a third contain counterparts living in the same household. A non-linear individual-level regression reveals that population density in the vicinity of the workplace is substantially related to kin density.Large agglomerations seem to coexist with low kin density workplaces. Although some level of kin membership is unavoidable especially at workplaces in sparsely populated places, removing this part still reveals that kinship above an unavoidable level seems to exist. The study contributes to the discussion of kinship in workplaces by examining the magnitude and composition of kinship ties in the whole work force and complementing findings with interviews. & Reeb, 2003;Dick & Morgan, 1987;Kramarz & Nordström Skans, 2010). In fact, the use of family networks to access jobs actually seems to have increased in advanced societies during the latter part of the 20th century (Bellow, 2003;Ioannides & Datcher, 2004). It can even be difficult to avoid kinship ties in certain contexts, particularly within large workplaces in small labour markets (Adjei, Eriksson, & Lindgren, 2016). A study of all Swedish workplaces concluded that kinship ties ----------------------------------------------This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

Family Business and Regional Development

“…Despite the ambiguity regarding the role of family involvement in business, kinship ties still constitute an important part of the recruitment process. Although a systematic cross-country mapping of family involvement in business is missing, family co-occurrence constitutes about 14% of all employment in Sweden (Holm, Westin, & Haugen, 2017). This finding supports the notion that meritocracy in the labour market co-exists with other types of hiring practices (Adjei, 2018), such as nepotism.…”

“…Therefore, it is reasonable to expect that in smaller regions, stronger and more trustful familial relationships are likely to be found in firms. Supporting this argument, Holm et al (2017) found low levels of kinship density in workplaces in Sweden's metropolitan regions, somewhat high levels in intermediate regions (urban regions), and higher levels in remote and sparsely populated areas (rural or small regions). They further showed that kinship density decreases with rising education levels, which means that workers with low education are over-represented in workplaces with high kinship density, a phenomenon that is likely highly associated with smaller and/or rural regions.…”

Familial relationships and firm performance: the impact of entrepreneurial family relationships

“…Prior studies have reported that family co-occurrence is relatively more common in smaller regions compared to larger regions (Adjei, Eriksson, and Lindgren 2016;Holm, Westin, and Haugen 2017). Therefore, the contingency effects of the family on skill variety ought to be an important policy focus for regional planning.…”

How Do Nepotism and Favouritism Affect Organisational Climate?

“…Good organisational climate, which manifests as individual perception of the working environment, is vitally important for the smooth operation of organisations (Parker et al, 2003;Alwaheeb, 2020;Beus et al, 2020). Nevertheless, evidently, it is impossible to avoid work with relatives and the influence related to this during recruitment (Holm et al, 2017); therefore, these processes must be monitored, and the ways must be sought to reduce the negative impact (Horak, 2018). Neill et al (2019) have specified that managers who seek employees to be more committed and identify themselves with the organisation have to be sincere and create an atmosphere based on trust, whereas Arasli et al (2019) revealed that favouritism is related to the violation of the psychological contract and unsafe work climate.…”