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Social capital and immigrants' labour market performance
Author(s) -
Piracha Matloob,
Tani Massimiliano,
VairaLucero Matias
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
papers in regional science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.937
H-Index - 64
eISSN - 1435-5957
pISSN - 1056-8190
DOI - 10.1111/pirs.12117
Subject(s) - social capital , labour economics , immigration , economics , business , demographic economics , sociology , political science , social science , law
This paper analyses the role of social capital on immigrants' labour market outcomes. We use principal component analysis ( PCA ) to build an index of social networks and explore its impact on the probability of getting a job and on wage levels using the H ouseholds I ncome and L abour D ynamics in A ustralia ( HILDA ) longitudinal survey data (2002–2010). We find a positive effect of social capital on migrants' employment outcomes and wages, especially for women. Distinguishing employment into blue and white‐collar jobs, we find that social capital only affects the probability of getting a white‐collar job. These results suggest that promoting opportunities to create social capital has a beneficial effect on migrants' integration in the host country.