Social capital and immigrant integration

Abstract

This dissertation presents three empirical studies on the distribution and role of social capital among immigrants in the United States. Using data from two national datasetsthe New Immigrant Survey (NIS 2003, 2007) and the Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey (SCCBS 2000)-it examines the implications of social capital for immigrants' social and economic integration. In doing so, it addresses several key limitations within migration research. The first limitation it addresses is the focus of prior research on migrants' co-ethnic (bonding) social capital and the limited research on immigrants' "bridging" social capital and distributional inequities across immigrant groups. Second, while most research has focused on the role of social capital in economic integration, relatively little is known about the short-run and long-term implications of immigrants' social capital for their health and well-being. Third, prior research has generally focused on specific immigrant groups, particularly Hispanic and Asian immigrants, and it is unclear if prior findings are generalizable to immigrants overall or if they are simply capturing group and/or context-specific effects of social capital. This dissertation includes three studies that provide pieces of evidence that address these limitations and contribute to the migration literature. In the first study, I explore the link between race, immigration status and social network diversity. Using data on personal network characteristics from the SCCBS (2000), I examine the role of race and immigration status in the distribution of ethnicity and status-bridging social capital. Findings confirm the double disadvantage of minority and outsider status for minority immigrants when it comes to access to network diversity, and group (i.e. race) differences in native-immigrant v gaps in access to ethnicity-bridging social capital. The findings also show there is an intersectional disadvantage in network quality that is explained away by group differences in network ethnic diversity, and that race and immigrant status are a factor in determining the return from network ethnic diversity in terms of network quality, which is reflective of the extant socioeconomic stratification system in the United States. In the second study, I use a nationally representative data of immigrants from the NIS (2003), to examine the link between reliance of new immigrants on "bonding" social capital for job search and two indicators of labor market performance: earnings and occupational prestige. I find that while using a family or relative to find a job generally has a negative effect on both earnings and occupational prestige, this effect is not shared across all immigrants, which explains inconsistent findings in prior studies of the role of co-ethnic social capital in the labor market outcomes of Hispanic and Asian immigrants. In the third study, I turn my attention to the immigrant health literature, which has largely focused on the acculturation-health relationship and largely ignores the significanc...

Conceptual framing of immigrant social capital as a component of socioeconomic status for comparative health research

“…Empirically, this means that social capital must be defined in a way that permits for both positive and negative relationships to emerge. Some note that that social capital can be episodic and potentially harmful, urging caution when considering policy recommendations based on this concept [56][57][58][59][60] (Cheong et al, 2007;Villalonga-Olives & Kawachi, 2017). (Gericke et al, 2018;Peterson & Crittenden, 2020;Tegegne, 2016).…”

“…Some note that that social capital can be episodic and potentially harmful, urging caution when considering policy recommendations based on this concept [56][57][58][59][60] (Cheong et al, 2007;Villalonga-Olives & Kawachi, 2017). (Gericke et al, 2018;Peterson & Crittenden, 2020;Tegegne, 2016). Programs designed to improve social capital may have an influence on health, but without taking into consideration the broader structural factors that contribute to the health of immigrants, they are unlikely to make a significant impact on health inequities.…”

“…In a practical sense, a positioning of social capital as an individual, rather than collective, property allows for the creation of aggregate measures that can be subsequently explored alongside community-level indicators such as city, county or state policy indicators of healthcare access, political opinion, etc. [58][59][60](Gericke et al, 2018; Peterson & Crittenden, 2020; Tegegne, Given the abundance of definitions of social capital, it is important to clearly delineate the most appropriate concept to include in a framework of the impact of socioeconomic status and social capital on immigrant health [48] (Keeley, 2007).…”