T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F B R I T I S H C O L U M B I A

Bridging and/or Bonding: Studies of New Generation Immigrant Youth, Social Capital and Job Search

Miu Chung Yan, Ph.D.

Associate ProfessorSchool of Social Work

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Sean Lauer, Ph.D. Assistant Professor

Department of Sociology

T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F B R I T I S H C O L U M B I A

Youth Unemployment: The Facts• Global and local issues: 3 times higher than

general unemployment rate

• UN: 2005, 60 million young people unemployed worldwide

• Canada: Hidden Deficit

• December 2005, general unemployment rate 5.5% and youth unemployment 11.8%

• Defining youth: 15 to 24 or 29 or more?

• New generation = second generation + 1.5 generation who came at young age (12 or below).

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Immigrant Family, Youth & Employment

• Family is the major source of job referrals for young people. This finding is corroborated by a few Canadian studies (e.g., Canadian Youth Foundation, 1995b; Granovetter, 1974; Yan, 2000).

• Payne (1987) finds that unemployment may run in families.• Questions:

– If immigrant parents generally face unfavourable employment conditions, then how much resource they will have in helping their children to access the job market?

– What other resource will immigrant youth have to access job market?

• Portes observes that there is only little study on the new generation immigrant youth.

T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F B R I T I S H C O L U M B I A

International Literature• Manni (1994): In Australia, while both first and second

generation immigrants are at a disadvantage in the labour market, compared to the first generation, the second generation and those with more years in Australia are in a significantly more favourable condition.

• Nesdale & Pinter (2000): In Australia, while the ethnic background of immigrant youth may impact their unemployment, the perceived standing in the host culture influences their job seeking.

• Portes’ (1995): In Florida, Cuban youth experience otherwise.

• Waldinger and Feliciano (2004) rejects Portes’ observations.

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Canadian Literature• Statistics Canada (2005): Intergenerational Earning Mobility

Among the Children of Canadian Immigrants– 2nd generation children more educated, earn more on average– Had higher weekly earning except those whose fathers are from

Caribbean, Central and South America, and Oceania– Focused on 25-37 year-old second generation who were borne from 1963

to 1975, a period mainly with European immigrants. • Palameta, B. (2007). Economic integration of immigrant's

children. Perspectives, October 2008, 5-16.– Second generation youth from immigrant families tend to do better in

education than their third- and higher generation counterparts– Earnings disadvantage of visible minority men, though not women, with

two immigrant parents• Canadian Labour Congress (2005): Racial Status and

Employment Outcomes– Visible minority youth born in Canada (most likely second generation

youth) has lesser work hours, lower pay, higher unemployment, compared not only to general youth population but also to foreign born visible minority youth

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T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F B R I T I S H C O L U M B I A

Canadian Literature (cont.)

• HRDC (2003): Being Young and Visible: Labour Market Access Among Immigrant and Visible Minority Youth– Visible minority youth is harder to find employment– Local born visible minorities were doing better than foreign

born counterpart– Age of migration and language ability may be contributing

factors to employment• Brief summary:

– New generation youth are in better position in terms of language and level of integration

– Visible minority new generation youth may face more barriers– Lack of research on new generation youth from immigrant

families– Inconclusive in general

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T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F B R I T I S H C O L U M B I A

Solutions to Youth Unemployment• Human Capital: (Becker, 1964)

– A form of assets generated by investments in education, training and medical care

– Examples: governments have introduced programs, such as job search training, skills upgrading, re-training, paid job placement and self-employment, to assist young people in entering the job market.

– Necessary but not sufficient• Granovetter (1974): not who you are but who

you know that matters in youth employment

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Social Capital (I)

• Bourdieu: social inequality is caused by the unequal access to and interaction of various kinds of “capitals” – symbolic, cultural, and social -- social structural conceptualization.

• Coleman: functional social relationship of authority and of trust and norms embedded in a young person’s family and community organization and the connections among them affect his/her development of human capital – socio-educational conceptualization.

• Putnam: trust and reciprocity among people by encouraging social participation in community organizations –political scientific conceptualization

T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F B R I T I S H C O L U M B I A

Social Capital (II)• Portes and Lin:

– social capital, in its most basic form, is the resource embedded in people’s social networks which can provide purposive functions to their success

– social capital has a structural property which implies that one’s social capital depends on his/her social position connecting to different network

• Putnam and Granovetter: – Two forms: Bonding (strong ties) – solidarity and in-group– Bridging (weak ties) – between group

• Burt: – Structural holes: gaps between different networks in our society

which are caused by people’s social position, their strong tie to their own network, and their limited access to other network outside their own community

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Application of Social Capital: Immigrant Studies• Better education performance (e.g., Zhou and Bankston,

1994)

• Friends and relatives are the most frequently used search methods (Holzer, 1988)

• Ethnic enclave (Portes, 1995)– In general, immigrants are rich in bonding capital but lack bridging

capital.

– Portes: strong tie offers short term benefit (low-paid job within the community) but leads to long term deprivation (such as downward mobility)

– Bourdieu: social capital is not distributed evenly

T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F B R I T I S H C O L U M B I A

Conceptual Framework

Types of Social Capital -Individual

- Strength of ties- Extent of ties

- Community - Bonding ties

- Bridging ties

Background Characteristics-Ethnicity-Immigrant History-Gender-Parents SES-Field of Study

Job Search Strategies & Process- Social Capital- Employment

Services- Market

Employment Outcomes-Success of search-Quality of job

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Two Parallel Studies• New generation youth with university degree

– SSHRC Standard Grant– Data Collection: 2005-2007– Pre and post graduation survey design– Semi-structure interview

• New generation youth with no degree– Metropolis British Columbia– Data Collection: 2006 - 2007– Focus group interview

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The Context of Job Search

• Long run decline in the joblessness– Jobless rate in BC has been in decline

since 2002

• Long run growth of the service sector– Roughly 4 in 5 jobs are service industry

jobs

T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F B R I T I S H C O L U M B I A

Preliminary Survey Results

• Two unique aspects of this research– Measuring social capital as ties– Measuring social capital before job

search

• A look at heterogeneous ties in particular

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Measuring Stores of Social Capital

• Social capital is often measured when used.

• A person may hold valuable social resources and not use them.

• We use two approaches to measuring social ties to capture stored social capital a person holds and might use.

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Close and Extensive Ties

• We use a name generator to collect up to five close personal ties a young person holds.

Person Initial of First Name Gender Relative or Friends

Same ethnic Employed?

Person 1 Male/Female

Relative/Friend Yes/no Yes/no

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Close and Extensive Ties

• Not all valuable ties are close. We use a position generator to learn about ties that reach beyond close personal ties.

Family Relative Friends Same ethnicity Friends different Ethnicity

School teacher Yes / No Yes / No Yes / No Yes / No

Electrician Yes / No Yes / No Yes / No Yes / No

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Heterogeneous Close and Extensive Ties

Number of Cross-ethnic Friends

5.004.003.002.001.000.00

Fre

quency

250

200

150

100

50

0

Cross-Ethnic Ties

14.0012.0010.008.006.004.002.000.00

Fre

quency

100

80

60

40

20

0

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Why Look at Heterogeneous Ties?

• They can be valuable as an end in themselves.

• Heterogeneous ties provide access to diverse social resources that can be valuable in pursuing goals.

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Heterogeneous Close and Extensive Ties

• New immigrants are less likely to hold heterogeneous close ties.

• Visible minority new immigrants are less likely to hold heterogeneous close and extensive ties

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Heterogeneous Ties, Job Search and Outcomes - Employment during school

• Search: finding work through personal ties

• Outcome: finding a job relevant to education

• Heterogeneous close ties

– Do not have a direct effect on search or the outcome

• Heterogeneous extensive ties

– Increase use of non-family contacts to find work, but not for visible minority students

– Increase the likelihood of holding a relevant job for visible minorities

T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F B R I T I S H C O L U M B I A

Future Impact of Stores of Social Capital

• Job Search– Neither heterogeneous close nor extensive ties are

associated with finding work through personal contacts• Job Outcomes

– Heterogeneous extensive ties increase the likelihood of holding a relevant job, but not for visible minorities

– Among visible minorities, there is an indirect effect between heterogeneous close ties and holding a relevant job through the diversity of the workplace.

• Those with heterogeneous close ties are more likely to work in a diverse workplace, which in turn makes holding a relevant job more likely.

T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F B R I T I S H C O L U M B I A

Findings of Qualitative Studies

• Interviews with University graduates (SSHRC)– Semi-structured interviews with 20 youth one year after

graduation – Include youth from variety of backgrounds and

immigrant generations

• Focus group interviews with non-University graduates (MBC)– 5 focus groups with youth from Chinese (2), ‘South

Asian (2) and Filipino/a backgrounds

T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F B R I T I S H C O L U M B I A

Non-University Youth

• Entry Level Service Sector Jobs– Work is available (Service industry)

– Commitment is low

– Lateral movement is common

• Avoidance of Co-Ethnic Employers– Shared ethnicity leads to other expectations

T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F B R I T I S H C O L U M B I A

Non-University Youth

• Using Personal Ties– Often use impersonal strategies (Walk-in and

cold call)– Personal ties facilitate job movement– Prefer friendship ties to family ties in job

search• Education a Persistent Concern

– Interest in degrees rather than training for specific job

– Part of values and aspirations nurtured by parents

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University Graduates

• Starting Professional Careers– Job search is like ‘pulling hair’

– Spend more effort on search but not much more time

– Ethnic employer non-issue

• The Value of a University Degree– Credentials open doors

– University education is not directly beneficial to job opportunity

– Desire on the job training

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University Graduates

• Using Non-personal Ties– Internet

• Using Personal Ties– Parents provide valuable emotional

support, but not connections– Friends in the field – job information– More attention to establish network in

the field

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Coming from Immigrant Families

• Feel better than their parents in labour market standing– Less report in racist experience (economic condition)

• Parents are not useful resource– No guidance of navigating the job market– Limited bridging social capital from first generation

immigrant parents• Non-professional jobs, Lack cross-ethnic ties, Limited

knowledge of the local system

• Differences in the use of friends– Mostly co-ethnic friends– Limited scope of bridging to larger job opportunity

T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F B R I T I S H C O L U M B I A

Tentative Policy Suggestions• Lack of bridging social capital: A possible explanation of

low economic integration of immigrant family– More studies needed to examine the relationship between availability

of bridging social capital and economic outcome

• Re-examination of the concept of settlement and integration in immigration policy

– An intergenerational process

• Program suggestions– Specific programs for new generation immigrant youth – such as

mentorship

– Expand and better promotion of youth employment programs – not only to youth but also their significant others