Short- and Long-Term Effects of Personal and Institutional Ties STOR ®
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Pathways into Work: Short- and Long-Term Effects of Personal and Institutional Ties STOR ® James E. Rosenbaum; Stefanie DeLuca; Shazia R. Miller; Kevin Roy Sociology of Education, Vol. 72, No. 3 (Jul., 1999), 179-196. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0038-0407%28199907%2972%3A3%3Cl 79%3APIWSAL%3E2.0.C0%3B2-P Sociology of Education is currently published by American Sociological Association. Your use of the JS TOR archive indicates your acceptance of JS TOR' s Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/about/terms.html. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/joumals/asa.html. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is an independent not-for-profit organization dedicated to creating and preserving a digital archive of scholarly journals. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. http://www.jstor.org/ Wed Mar 30 00:34:44 2005 Pathways into Work: Short- and Long-term Effects of Personal and Institutional Ties James E. Rosenbaum, Stefanie Deluca, Shazia R. Miller, and Kevin Roy Northwestern University Although youths are often confined in jobs that allow minimal gains in earnings, the authors used quantitative data to examine whether any kinds of job contact allow youths to get jobs that lead to later higher earnings and use qualitative data to illustrate school job contacts and the ways they can help disadvantaged groups. Analyzing data from High School and Beyond, the authors found that most types of contacts have little effect on early earnings, but relatives and school contacts place students in jobs that lead to higher earnings nine years later (at age 28). Blacks, young women, and high-achieving youths less often get their jobs from relatives but more often get jobs through school contacts. The findings indicate the theoretical importance of social contacts and previously overlooked ways that high schools improve the work-entry process for youths, especially blacks and females. oung people face great difficulties Sociological theories suggest that the in gaining recognition of their problem resides in the structure of the value in the labor market. New labor market; the labor market is stratified, IIg ool graduates have difficulty get and youths are confined in low-strata jobs ting jobs that offer good pay or advance that offer poor stability, low pay, and little ment, and their jobs and pay tend to be advancement (that is, the secondary labor unrelated to their school achievements market; Doeringer and Piore 1971 ). (Bills 1992; Crain 1984; Grubb 1993; Jencks Stratified labor market theory explains et al. 1979; Parcel 1987; Stern, Finkelstein, these findings, but it overexplains youths' Stone, Latting, and Dornsife 1995). These difficulties. It has two problems: It does not outcomes are not well explained by eco explain why some youths escape the sec nomic or sociological theories. For instance, ondary labor market at the outset or how human capital theory predicts that new many individuals eventually escape it later high school graduates with higher achieve (Granovetter 1995). ment will get better jobs and pay than will In response to the failures of traditional those with low achievement, but that pre economic and sociological theories diction is clearly contradicted by research (Althauser and Kalleberg 1981; Dore 1992; (Gamoran 1994; Griffin, Kalleberg, and Williamson 1975), new theories have arisen Alexander 1981; Miller 1998; Murnane, in both fields. The new institutional eco Willett, and Levy 1995). nomics considers the efficiencies of institu- Sociology of Education 1999, Vol. 72 (July): 179-196 179 180 Rosenblum, Deluca, Miller, and Roy tional relationships and calls for studies of Vaughn 1981 ). For less educated, inexperi actors and social contexts (Lazear 1979; enced workers, weak personal ties may be less Rosen 1982). Similarly, new sociological mod effective (Ericksen and Yancey 1 980; Wegener els contend that markets often "depend on 1991 ). the nature of personal relations and the net Moreover, there is an additional concern work of relations between and within firms" that "cross-sectional analyses may miss the (Granovetter 1985:502). Instead of assuming role of personal contacts in building a career" that information is always used and trusted, (Granovetter 1995:149). Granovetter sug these models describe some ways that infor gested that early contacts may have a greater mation is given meaning through social con impact on later jobs than on early jobs. This tacts. "People prefer to deal with individuals effect may occur because of the accumulation of known reputation, or, even better, with of advantages that come from initial contacts, individuals they have dealt with before; social since good initial contacts lead to more and relations ... are mainly responsible for the better subsequent contacts (p. 149). production of trust in economic life" Alternatively, it may occur as the result of the (Granovetter 1985:490-91 ). operation of career ladders in that youths Some types of job contacts may explain with good contacts get early jobs that lead to how some youths can evade ordinary obsta better future career advancements, even cles of the labor market structure and get jobs though these jobs pay no better initially that lead to better immediate pay and better (Rosenbaum 1984). These contentions sug career trajectories that increase their earnings gest the need for longitudinal studies. over time. This article examines whether dif While studies have focused on personal ferent kinds of youths use different ways to contacts, institutional contacts have been contact employers and whether youths' ways largely neglected in the United States, of contacting employers affect their earnings although they have been studied in other right after high school and nine years later. nations. In Germany and Japan, institutional Besides examining the effects of two types of contacts help youths gain access to good jobs personal contacts (relatives and friends), it (Brinton 1993; Kariya and Rosenbaum 1995; also explores the influence of two types of Osterman 1988). In these nations, many institutional contacts (school job placement youths, particularly those with higher school and employment services) that have rarely achievement, gain access to jobs with better been considered in previous research. training and advancements because these nations have institutional contacts between schools and employers that communicate PERSONAL VERSUS youths' value to employers. In Japan, high INSTITUTIONAL CONTACTS school teachers nominate appropriate youths for better job openings, and employers gen In recent years, there has been increasing erally respond to teachers' nominations that interest in the ways in which social contacts they value as reliable signals of youths' abili influence labor market outcomes. ties and work habits (Rosenbaum and Kariya Granovetter's (1973) early study showed how 1989, 1991 ). Similarly, in Germany, a nation the job search process was facilitated by per al employment agency uses students' grades sonal ties, particularly weak ties (such as casu in determining which students are nominated al acquaintances) that provide wide sources to better apprenticeships, and employers use of information about jobs, from which one grades in hiring youths who apply directly can choose the best. However, Granovetter's (Hamilton 1989; Rosenbaum, Kariya, finding occurred in a sample of experienced Settersten, and Maier 1 990). Both nations well-educated workers, and subsequent have stratified labor markets, but institutional research has suggested that weak personal networks communicate youths' value to ties are "of most advantage to those higher employers, and youths who do well in school up and least to those at the bottom" gain access to jobs with better opportunities (Granovetter 1995:150; Lin, Ensel, and for advancement. Pathways into Work 181 The United States lacks a formal system like not trust the services' screening if it was done Japan's or Germany's, so institutional contacts (Osterman 1988). Moreover, applicants find may have weaker effects or none at all. Yet it that searches take longer if they use employ is possible that informal institutional contacts ment services (Wielgosz and Carpenter may exist in the United States, perform simi 1987). lar functions, and explain how some youths We also studied the effects of high schools. get jobs that lead to better pay. Holzer's (1 996) study of employers found that Despite the great interest in the effects of 4.6 percent of jobs are filled by school place personal contacts, research has paid little ments, and Bishop's (1992) study reported a attention to institutional contacts, and infor figure of 7.9 percent (for small and medium mation in popular data sets is often inade sized employers). Our present analyses found quate. The National Longitudinal Survey of that about 8.5 percent of students said that Youth (NLSY) found that 4.8 percent of they got their jobs through school help. unemployed youths