Authors:
Mattia Vacchiano | Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) | Spain
Joel Martì | Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB)
A large body of sociological literature has been accumulated regarding the role of social capital as job search method and its results on job findings. On this topic, the «social resources theory» formulates the proposition that social capital (in terms of both accessed and mobilised resources in social networks) enhances the chances of obtaining better socioeconomic status. Although it is reasonable to claim that job seekers benefits by using contacts, inconclusive empirical evidence has put in doubt the importance of contacts on job outcomes, generating what is known, in the last decade, as the “Mouw-Lin debate”. Drawing on social capital theory, in this presentation we use social networks data from a study of young adults aged 20–34 in the Barcelona metropolitan area, in order to test the importance of contacts on occupational attainments. Controlling for socioeconomic variable such as sex, age and gender, we performed a multilevel analysis which predict the impact on job outcomes considering: (1) parental resources (occupational category), (2) personal resources (educational credentials), (3) accessed social capital (alters’ status and strength of ties) and (4) mobilized resources (alters’ status, strength and number of ties mobilized). Due to the specificity of our sample (which is composed only of young adults), we could not clarify the weight of occupational homophily on job outcomes (Mouw, 2003), considering this characteristic less dominant in young adults’ networks. However, our results show that SC has an impact on economic returns. Particularly, mobilising “few” and “better” contacts is associated with obtaining qualified jobs instead of no qualified; data also show that SC has no effect if we consider higher occupations (more qualified and prestigious jobs), underlying the importance of educational credentials for these specific attainments.
This research is part of a project financed by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Innovation through grant CSO2012-36055 conducted by the Centre d’Estudis Sociològics sobre la Vida Quotidiana i el Treball - Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. We also elaborate this research in the context of INCASI Network, a European project (Horizon 2020; Marie Skłodowska-Curie, 691004) coordinated by Dr. Pedro López-Roldán.