Social Capital and Its Returns as an Explanation for Early Labor Market Success of Majority and Minority Members in the Netherlands

Abstract

This paper tests whether social capital can explain differences in labor market success between ethnic majority and minority members. To overcome problems of reverse causality—labor market success is not only the result of social capital, but also leads to better networks—the focus is on adolescents who enter the labor market. Data from the ‘Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Survey’ are used (N = 2574) and matched to register data from Statistics Netherlands. Hypotheses are tested with structural equation models and a longitudinal approach. Two different mechanisms are tested: the capital deficit and the return deficit. Ethnic majority and minority members do not differ in social capital, thus refuting the capital deficit hypothesis. However, for majority members, the upper reachability of their social capital negatively affects chances of unemployment and positively affects chances of having a permanent contract. For minority members, no such effects were observed, indicating that the same level of social capital that benefits majorities, does not benefit minorities. More research into the return deficit minority members face is needed.

When white people experience the weight of the past: The role of white identity strategies in linking colonialism to current racial inequalities

“…As for the labor market, for instance, 13.2 per cent of the non-White labor force was unemployed in 2016, whereas this dropped to 4.9 per cent for the majority of White people (Statistiek, 2018). Moreover, social networks channel opportunities to White people to attain job security whereas they do not work for non-White people to the same extent (Baalbergen & Jaspers, 2023). Furthermore, when it comes to education, non-White students were less likely to get scientific schooling advice in some Dutch schools, which is key to attain the most prestigious jobs (Lek, 2020).…”

Minority bonding to political self-efficacy: a case study on bonding and bridging social capital and political self-efficacy among adolescents in Finland

“…science. For example, it has been used to explain health (Hyyppä and Mäki, 2001;Poortinga, 2012;van der Star and Bränström, 2015;Bamford et al, 2021;McAlpine et al, 2022), wellbeing (Heim et al, 2011;van der Star and Bränström, 2015), success in the labor market (Baalbergen and Jaspers, 2023), a higher level of entrepreneurship (Dana et al, 2018), political trust (Bäck and Kestilä, 2009) and political participation (Verba et al, 1995;Lee, 2022). While the concept of social capital has been defined in multiple ways (see e.g., Bäck, 2011), in political science, social capital is often understood as an interplay of trust and engagement in social networks (see, e.g., Tingaard and Svendsen, 2009).…”

“…However, minorities can be equal with majorities in terms of their SES and law-based rights, as is the case for the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland (Hansén, 1987). They can also have higher social capital than majorities (Baalbergen and Jaspers, 2023), which also holds true for the Swedish-speaking Finns (e.g., Mäki, 2001, 2003;Nyqvist et al, 2008;Paljärvi et al, 2009). Still, minorities are inherently in a different societal position than majorities because of being a minority: they are always an exception to the societal norm, which is why they tend to develop a minority identity and find it important to preserve their culture and defend their rights (Branscombe et al, 1999;Frost and Meyer, 2012).…”