Choosing a Job: Who Influences You the Most, Parents or Friends?

Pablo De la Vega Suárez, Juan Prieto-Rodriguez and Juan Gabriel Rodríguez
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Juan Gabriel Rodríguez

A chapter in Opportunity, Mobility and Inequality, 2025, vol. 31, pp 121-152 from Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Abstract: This chapter examines the relative influence of parents (vertical channel) and friends (horizontal channel) when deciding between employment in the public or private sector. Using a novel database and applying network analysis, the influence of peers is first measured. Next, the peer effect is compared with the impact of parental background on individual preferences. For the private sector, findings indicate that the influence (marginal effect) of friends is greater than that of parents. The opposite is observed for the public sector. However, in the case of public sector employment, the overall effect of the horizontal channel may surpass the vertical channel, as individuals typically have two parents but may have many friends. Additionally, it is found that both parents and friends exert a greater influence on women than on men.

Keywords: Social network; intergenerational transmission; private sector job; public sector job; gender; peer’s effect (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... 9-258520250000031006
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

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:eme:reinzz:s1049-258520250000031006

DOI: 10.1108/S1049-258520250000031006

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Research on Economic Inequality from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().