The role of social capital in immigrants’ and refugees’ labour market integration: evidence from Germany

Yuliya Kosyakova and Irena Kogan

Chapter 19 in Handbook on Inequality and Social Capital, 2024, pp 288-304 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This study investigates the impact of job search behaviour on immigrants’ employability and job status, considering the diverse nature of the immigrant population. The findings reveal the heterogeneity among refugees, economic immigrants and family immigrants concerning social and human capital, demographic characteristics, and job search strategies. While most economic and family immigrants possess premigration contacts in Germany and use them for the job search, refugees largely lack such connections and thus opportunities to use them for the job search. Yet, leveraging social contacts proves beneficial particularly for refugees and family facilitating gainful employment but often leading to lower-status jobs. Among economic immigrants, relying on social contacts in the job search results in lower occupational status, while such contacts show no discernible impact on employment propensity. The findings underscore the multifarious nature of social capital in immigrants’ labour market integration, emphasizing trade-offs and heterogeneities in the process.

Keywords: Sociology and Social Policy; Sustainable Development Goals (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.elgaronline.com/doi/10.4337/9781802202373.00028 (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:21002_19

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.e-elgar.com

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Darrel McCalla ().