The theoretical proposition that social networks contribute to class divides in political attitudes has rarely been further developed or empirically scrutinized with individual-level data on a large cross-national scale. In this article, we theorize and empirically examine how the class profiles of personal networks may shape individual attitudes to income inequality from a country-comparative perspective. Using multilevel modeling and data from the ISSP Social Networks and Resources module, covering 29 countries, we find that having more family, friends, and acquaintances in upper-middle-class positions is associated with lower support for reducing inequality, while having more social ties to working-class positions is associated with higher support for reducing inequality. We also assess how these relationships differ across countries depending on the institutional context, finding that both own class location and the class profiles of personal networks are more strongly related to attitudes to income inequality in countries with a higher rate of government redistribution. The study provides new theoretical and empirical insights into the importance of personal networks’ class profiles for shaping individual attitudes and structural ideological divisions linked to economic inequality, while also suggesting that social networks are key to understanding institutionally embedded distributive conflicts from a country-comparative perspective.

Research in several advanced economies has found that the descendants of immigrants tend to experience persistent difficulties in entering the labour market. This article tests whether social capital contributes to the disadvantage of descendants of immigrants in the school-to-work transition when compared to their native-background peers in Sweden. The study uses the CILS4EU survey, which provides information on friendship ties measured at age 15 and labour market outcomes at age 19. This allows for an analysis of networks formed before labour market entrance, an extensive control setup, and a comparison of measures of outgoing, incoming, and reciprocated friendship ties. The results show that the descendants of immigrants have access to less social capital measured as employed friends, but that they are as likely as natives to use their contacts to obtain a job. The returns to social capital are similar in terms of unemployment risk, but descendants of immigrants have a lower payoff when it comes to earnings. The study concludes that social capital contributes to, but is not the main driver of their labour market disadvantage in the school-to-work transition.

Relative risk aversion (RRA) models explain social class inequalities in education with risk avoidance, i.e., the risky choice assumption (RCA). This assumption concerns risks related to more ambitious educational choices and has been subject to little explicit scrutiny. In this paper, we test whether or not vocational education is a safety net that protects from labor market marginalization. We present an empirical assessment of upper-secondary track choices in Sweden, contrasting the vocational and the academic tracks for those not pursuing tertiary educational degrees. We use Swedish administrative data for all siblings born 1972–1980 and fit sibling fixed effects models netting out unobserved time-constant confounders. The only evidence in favor of the RCA is that when considering selection, graduates of the academic track without a tertiary degree initially face higher risks of not being stably employed and registered as unemployed in their early 20s than their counterparts from vocational education. However, the academic tracks significantly protect men from the threat of entering unskilled routine occupations. We conclude that the support for the RCA is scant at best.

Young adults in Europe sometimes have trouble moving away from their parents and obtaining a home of their own, which is considered an important step in the transition to adulthood. This paper investigates whether nest-leaving is affected by individual social capital and parental economic capital. The paper also examines how these resources are related to the type of housing tenure obtained and whether the housing was acquired through informal channels. In addition, the paper assesses whether differences in access and returns to social capital can explain the later nest-leaving of the children of immigrants. The study uses a Swedish two-wave panel survey of young adults aged between 19 and 22. Individual social capital is operationalized as an extensive social network measured with the position generator, while parental economic capital is estimated with registered disposable income. The results show that individual social capital is positively related to prospective nest-leaving, but parental income is not. Nevertheless, both individual social capital and parental economic capital are related to the obtained housing tenure type: social capital is linked to informal ‘second-hand’ rental agreements often acquired through contacts, whereas having high-income parents is linked to obtaining owned housing tenure. The children of immigrants are found to be more likely to live with their parents, but this is not explained by lower access or return to social capital.

Social networks play an important role in the employer–worker match, and the social capital perspective has been used to understand how social networks contribute to labour market inequality. This paper investigates the effect of social capital on achieving a stable labour market position for young adults, examining how boosted job finding self-efficacy is a possible mediator. The paper also examines whether social capital and self-efficacy are related to the preferred job search method. The study utilises a Swedish survey of young adults that is linked to tax register data on earnings. Here, social capital is defined as an extensive network and measured with the position generator, asking about knowing contacts in various occupations. The paper analyses heterogeneous effects that depend on the respondents’ initial status regarding employment and job search. The results show that social capital and job-finding self-efficacy are positively related to achieving stable employment for the initially not employed job searchers, but there is no effect for those initially employed and not searching for a new job. Furthermore, an analysis of job search methods reveals that social capital is positively related to preferring social networks and direct application and negatively related to searching through public employment services. The results also indicate that self-efficacy mediates only a little of the relationship between social capital and prospective employment, suggesting that job-finding self-efficacy likely only contributes slightly to how social capital affects labour market outcomes.

Previous research provides a detailed picture of class differences in political attitudes. Less is however known about the social structures that enforce this political divide across social classes. This article contributes towards filling this gap by considering how the class profile of personal social networks influences political attitudes. We propose a general framework for incorporating an individual’s social network into class analysis of political preferences. Using Sweden as a case, we empirically evaluate our approach using a population survey with information about the respondents’ own employment situation, egocentric networks, and political attitudes in terms of redistribution and welfare chauvinism. We find that there is considerable class segregation in social networks as individuals tend to have more ties within their own and neighboring class positions.  Concerning political preferences, results show that: (a) a substantive part of the class–attitude relationship is shaped by a person’s social network; (b) the class profile of networks influences attitudes over and above one’s own class position; (c) class segregation in networks fortifies class divides in political attitudes. We thus conclude that social networks constitute a (hitherto) “missing link” in class analysis of political preferences that merits careful consideration in theoretical models of contemporary politics.

This report has three aims:

1. To describe the activity statuses of young adults aged 19–20 years, based on their own reports.

2. To identify vulnerable subgroups. This is done among NEET youth, but the perspective is widened by also considering vulnerable positions among youth in work or education.

3. To describe the living conditions for young adults in different activity types and with different degrees of vulnerability.

The study investigates inequalities in access to social capital based on social class origin and immigration background and examines the role of transnational ties in explaining these differences. Social capital is measured with a position generator methodology that separates between national and transnational contacts in a sample of young adults in Sweden with three parental backgrounds: at least one parent born in Iran or Yugoslavia, or two Sweden-born parents. The results show that having socioeconomically advantaged parents is associated with higher levels of social capital. Children of immigrants are found to have a greater access to social capital compared to individuals with native background, and the study shows that this is related to transnational contacts, parents’ education and social class in their country of origin. Children of immigrants tend to have more contacts abroad, while there is little difference in the amount of contacts living in Sweden across the three groups. It is concluded that knowledge about immigration group resources help us predict its member’s social capital, but that the analysis also needs to consider how social class trajectories and migration jointly structure national and transnational contacts.