This thesis examines the relation between ascribed factors and the distribution of social capital among young adults. Information about the type of ties used in access to social capital is utilized to provide an understanding of the social contexts and mechanisms that play a role in the creation of social capital. The study measures social capital with a position generator methodology and utilizes the first wave of the Swedish LIFINCON survey, which is a study of 19 year olds of Iranian, Yugoslavian and Swedish origin. The results show that having socioeconomically advantaged parents and living in a large city region is associated with higher levels of social capital. Gender differences are found in the accessed range of social capital as women more often reached positions with the lowest prestige value. Background in Iran or Yugoslavia has a positive effect on social capital and parents’ class position in the country of origin is important for their children’ social capital. It is argued that social closure and social distance can explain why social background is important in determining access to high prestige social capital and that the composition of an individual network is affected by the average resources in a “group” or region.

Housing shortage can make it difficult for young adults to move away from their parents. This paper investigates nest leaving to understand resources and channels young adults use to move away from parents, with focus on the role of social capital and informal channels. Results show that both economic and social capital have positive effects on nest leaving. While social capital is linked to use of contacts and informal, “secondhand”, rental agreements, often transmitted via contacts, economic capital is instead related to formal housing tenure such as firsthand rental contracts and house ownership. Parental income does not have an effect on nest leaving, but is associated with a higher likelihood of living in an owned apartment. The study also indicates that immigrants are more likely to live with their parents, and discrimination as well as social capital shortage are discussed as possible explanations. The paper concludes that access to both economic and social capital make it more likely to move away from parents, but that each operates through a different channel and leads to different housing tenure.

This paper investigates how schools and neighborhoods structure the social capital of young adults. Two waves of panel data are used to study a sample of young adults in Sweden. Social capital is defined as access to resources through a social network and measured by the number of the five closest friends in higher education and employment, as well as the extensity and class composition of the occupational positions respondents have access to. The result demonstrates that close friends very often share school context and somewhat less often neighborhood context, and that the socioeconomic composition of both upper secondary schools and neighborhoods structures an individual’s access to social capital. In addition, variation between the two waves in the neighborhood context composition is shown to lead to change in the socioeconomic composition of the network. Results indicate a substantial persistence of context effects over time. School friendships formed during adolescence continue to be important into early adulthood, and the effect of context composition is maintained over time. Thus, it is concluded that the “growing up context” matters for social capital in early adulthood.

Social capital is known to be related to labor market outcomes, but less is known about the pathways between resources and labor market outcomes. To improve our understanding of the role of social capital in the process of labor market entry among young adults, this paper analyze whether social capital is related to labor market outcomes, mediating variables, and job search method. Analyzing two waves of panel data on young adults in Sweden, the results show that social capital is related to getting a job and that the effect varies according to the contact’s position. Social capital is positively related to the number of job leads, higher labor market self-efficacy, and the substitution of formal for informal job search. In conclusion, the labor market effects of access to social capital include both network mechanisms, such as information, and individual mechanisms, such as better self-efficacy.

The thesis explores the role of social capital in shaping inequality among young adults. Social capital is defined as resources embedded in a social network and the thesis investigates differences in access to social capital, and the effects in the labor market and the housing market. The thesis consists of four empirical studies and an introductory chapter that develops the theoretical and empirical background. The four empirical studies use a Swedish survey titled “Social Capital and Labor Market Integration” that includes individuals born in 1990 living in Sweden. A gross sample based on three subsamples was selected based on the country of birth of the respondents’ parents (Sweden, former Yugoslavia, or Iran). The survey consists of two waves of panel data and most respondents were 19 years old at the time of the first survey and 22 at the time of the second. The four studies investigate: (1) the effect of social class and migration background on access to social capital through national and transnational ties, (2) the effect of socioeconomic segregation in schools and neighborhoods on access to social capital through occupational networks and close friendship ties, (3) the effect of social capital in the process of labor market entry, and (4) the effect of social capital on the likelihood to move away from parents. All four studies measure social capital with ego network measures and the main measurement is the position generator that asks the respondent about contacts in occupational positions spanning the socioeconomic structure. Results show that family background factors and socioeconomic segregation affects access to social capital, and that social capital affects labor market and housing market outcomes. The thesis concludes that social capital is an important factor to understand unequal outcomes among young adults.

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.

Motivated by a recent controversy over handshaking, a survey of the personal networks of young Swedes (n=2244) is used to describe greeting practices across social class, gender, immigrant background, and geographic location. While greeting practices in the sample are fairly uniform, there are also important differences. Handshaking is predominantly used by respondents with an immigrant background, men and women distinguish between greetings depending on the gender of the person they are greeting, and greeting practices differ between northern and southern Sweden as well as between rural and urban areas.

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.

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.

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.