Alireza Behtoui

Informal Recruitment Methods and Disadvantages of Immigrants in the Swedish Labour Market

This paper examines the probability of success for different methods of finding employment in the Swedish labour market, in times of both economic growth and decline. Existing West European studies on hiring processes have not allowed researchers to examine the relationship between job contacts and wage income among various groups of immigrants. Since our dataset is sufficiently large, this article examines job-finding strategies and labour market outcomes for individuals within two large groups, immigrants and natives. By studying those who have been in their current jobs for one year or less, the paper investigates to what extent both natives and immigrants use their social networks to find a job, and how informal job-finding methods are related to the rate of return in the Swedish labour market for the job secured, in terms of hourly wage. The findings show that immigrants, compared to natives, are less likely to be able to find jobs through informal methods and that jobs found through informal methods do not pay as well for immigrants as for natives.

THE DISTRIBUTION AND RETURN OF SOCIAL CAPITAL: EVIDENCE FROM SWEDEN

ABSTRACT This paper studies the role of social capital in the status attainment process and examines the link between the hiring process and the potential pool of social capital embedded in a persons network. The analysis is based on a sample of people newly employed by the municipal services in Malmö, the third largest city in Sweden. Jobs in this sector of labour market are mainly low-paid, and are dominated by women and immigrants. The position generator method is used to measure social capital, understood as assets captured by individuals in social networks. The findings demonstrate that access to social capital is positively related to work experience, a higher educational level, having a partner, and active membership of voluntary associations. It is also apparent that being an immigrant is associated with a substantial social capital deficit. Regarding the return on capital, the results show that both human capital and social capital were rewarded with higher wages and more adequate jobs. Furthermore, we found that social capital is associated with better labour market outcomes, whether or not respondents reported that they obtained their current jobs using informal job-search methods. Results also show similar returns on access to social capital for natives and immigrants.

Social capital and wage disadvantages among immigrant workers

This study investigates the characteristics that affect access to social capital for employees in a single industrial firm in Sweden, and the impact of their social capital on their monthly salaries. The results demonstrate that being a member of a stigmatised immigrant group is associated with a substantial social capital deficit. This deficit arises because immigrant workers are embedded in social networks that constrain their ability to acquire valuable social resources or are excluded from social networks with valuable resources. Another finding is that the average salary earned by members of stigmatised immigrant groups is lower than that earned by native-born workers. The observed wage gap cannot be explained by ‘human capital’ variables. However, when social capital variables were taken into account, wage gaps noticeably shrank, which indicates that part of the wage disadvantage experienced by immigrants is likely to represent the impact of unequal access to social capital.

Social capital, status and income attainment in the workplace

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to investigate the importance of social capital in the workplace. To be more precise, we ask whether access to social capital is associated with differences i ...

Social capital and the educational achievement of young people in Sweden

Based on Bourdieu’s conceptualization of social capital (the social stratification perspective), this study examines the impact of social capital on the educational outcomes of young people in Sweden, with a focus on the extra-familial aspect of social capital – that is, social capital generated by parental networks and active membership in various social organizations and friendship networks. The results indicate that the class background of respondents is the main predictor of access to all three forms of extra-familial social capital. However, after controlling for class background, the children of racialized immigrant groups are more likely to have access to more types of social capital than others. All three aspects of extra-familial social capital positively influence the educational performance of pupils.

Incorporation of children of immigrants : the case of descendants of immigrants from Turkey in Sweden

Abstract This paper investigates how children of immigrants from Turkey are integrated into Swedish society. The educational achievements and labour market outcomes of this group are compared with the performance of the offspring of native-born parents. The aim of the study is to explore whether we can observe a tendency towards ‘downward mobility’ among young people of immigrant background in Sweden and thereby provide reflections on the existing formulation of the ‘segmented assimilation’ theory. Findings show that descendants of immigrants seem not to be in the process of downward assimilation, that is, social exclusion and therefore formation of a distinct ‘underclass’ in Sweden. The concept of ‘subordinate inclusion’ is a more appropriate description of the experiences of children of immigrants.

Beyond social ties: The impact of social capital on labour market outcomes for young Swedish people

This study makes use of a dataset which contains material relating to young Swedish people who have recently completed their studies and started working. It explores whether using social networks as such or using individuals’ resources which are accessible through social networks (social capital) provides relative advantages in the competition for better jobs. Interest in this topic stems from the recent development of sociological theories in this field. The results indicate that the use of social ties is a common way to find a job in the highly regulated Swedish labour market, but that informal recruitment methods per se provide no relative advantages in the competition for better jobs. On the other hand, given the same demographic characteristics, socioeconomic background and educational attainments, there is a positive association between resources embedded in an individual’s social network (social capital) and the quality of the jobs obtained.

Perceptions of Discrimination in Recruitment and the Workplace

Previous Swedish studies show that, due to stigmatization and discrimination, immigrants occupy inferior positions in the labor market. This article investigates the extent to which natives and immigrants perceive discrimination of immigrants establishes the discrepancy between concrete and abstract attitudes about discrimination, and evaluates the assimilation hypothesis and the consciousness hypothesis as alternative explanations of perceived discrimination by immigrants. Data for this study came from a survey of individuals employed by the Malmö municipality. The results show that, concerning abstract attitudes, natives hold largely the same opinion about discrimination against immigrants as do immigrants themselves, and that there is a significant difference between concrete and abstract perceptions of discrimination among natives and immigrants. But immigrants embrace stronger positions than do natives on the prevalence of discrimination in the workplace. With one exception, our results tend to be more in line with the consciousness perspective.

Speaking up, leaving or keeping silent : racialized employees in the Swedish elderly care sector

When encountering problems and dissatisfaction in the workplace, employees may choose between three strategies: voice; exit; or silence. Using survey data and interview material from a study of employees in an elderly care organization in Sweden, this article investigates the workers’ perceptions of the eligibility and prospects of these strategies and which individual characteristics and situational factors might affect them. The focus is on racialized workers (operationalized through their region of birth) who, according to earlier studies, are less likely than other employees to choose voice behaviour. Contrary to some earlier studies, the results here attribute such a propensity to the importance of power differences across ‘racial hierarchies’ rather than to differences in cultural values. Individuals in this (racialized) category have a lower occupational status, earn less and experience less favourable relationships with their managers.

Social Capital and the Educational Expectations of Young People.

The aim of this study is to explore the determinants of the educational expectations of young people in disadvantaged urban areas in three large cities in Sweden. In addition to the conventional predictors such as parental resources (economic and cultural capital) and demographic characteristics (such as age, gender, immigration background), this study examines the impact of the different types of social capital (both within-family and extra-familial), on the educational ambitions of these young people. The results indicate that the class background of the respondents, together with the demographic characteristics of young people, are important predictors of their educational ambition. Different forms of social capital also explain a significant part of the variance in students’ educational expectations.