Web of Science: 7 citations, Scopus: 9 citations, Google Scholar: citations,
Nine mechanisms of job-searching and job-finding through contacts among young adults
Vacchiano, Mattia

Date: 2021
Abstract: Since Granovetter's seminal works, the influence of personal networks on the labour market has attracted widespread attention. This article analyses the role played by contacts in the context of the labour trajectories of young people in Spain, for whom the use of personal networks represents one of the most important job-searching methods. Using narrative data extracted from a life-history grid and ego-network generator, the analysis brings to light nine mechanisms in which personal contacts intervene in job-searching and job-finding in a sample of 90 young people living in the Barcelona Metropolitan Area. The article emphasizes that contacts play primarily three roles in these processes as informers, employers, or influencers. This distinction offers a renewed framework for the study of networks in the labour market, further complementing the debate on the strength of ties. Using this framework allows me to create a map of the mechanisms that shed light on personal networks as tools with which to deal with labour insecurity and unemployment among young people, thus providing resources that to a large extent reaffirm the objective character of class differences. The article offers innovative insights into how social capital operates in the labour market and helps understand how youth precarity, which is widespread in Spain, is experienced in a relational way.
Grants: Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad CSO2012-36055
Note: Altres ajuts: 51NF40-160590
Rights: Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original. Creative Commons
Language: Anglès
Document: Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Subject: Labour market ; Personal networks ; Social capital ; Youth
Published in: Sociological research online, 2021 , ISSN 1360-7804

DOI: 10.1177/13607804211009525


18 p, 541.8 KB

The record appears in these collections:
Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Social and Legal Sciences > Centre d’Estudis Sociològics sobre la Vida Quotidiana i el Treball (QUIT)
Articles > Research articles
Articles > Published articles

 Record created 2021-05-17, last modified 2022-07-23



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