Capital battles: Labor markets benefits access channel of youth and social networks in Turkey

Abstract

The number of findings indicated that social networks positively affect employment conditions of young workers. This kind of comment reveals that the positive effect is limited to middle-class youth. However, in this study, I will claim that social capital is an independent resource and must be seen as specific to working-class strategies. I used Turkish household labor survey covering paid employment in youth employment and I will test two hypotheses on the influence of social networks. The first one asserts that social networks commonly used by working-class and middle-class youth tend to enhance cultural capital resources. The second hypothesis claims that social networks are useful for obtaining the benefits of labor markets via private large-scale industrial employment for working-class youth; on the contrary, middle-class youth try to reach these benefits through managerial career paths. After the analysis, findings confirm that both hypotheses are valid.