How do social networks affect labor markets?

Artikel

Social networks, or “job-referral” networks, can help make labor markets become more efficient. Outside the firm, they help workers obtain employment after displacement and secure higher-paying jobs. They can also match highly-skilled workers to more productive employment. Inside the firm, referrals facilitate employment relationships that are more stable, productive, and profitable. In aggregate, referral networks help “grease the wheels” of a labor market that can be beset by a range of information problems. However, such networks can also be segmented along racial, ethnic, and socio-economic lines, which brings into question the effect they may have on inequality between and within different groups of workers.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Journal: IZA World of Labor ; ISSN: 2054-9571 ; Year: 2016 ; Bonn: Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Labor Economics: General ; Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials ; Monopsony; Segmented Labor Markets ; Job, Occupational, and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion ; Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity ; Network Formation and Analysis: Theory
• Subject: referral networks ; wages ; unemployment ; inequality ; social interactions

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Schmutte, Ian
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
• (where): Bonn
• (when): 2016

Further information

• DOI: doi:10.15185/izawol.304
• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/148529
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:46 AM CET