Building social capital in a new home country. A closer look into the predictors of bonding and bridging relationships of migrant populations at different education levels

Abstract

This article explores the factors that may facilitate or hinder the development of migrant social capital in a settlement country. We build on Robert Putnam’s dyad of bonding and bridging social capital, which are here combined into a single categorical dependent variable. As earlier research shows that higher educated migrants tend to form more extensive social relationships, we explore whether they draw from different background factors to build social capital than those with less education. Separate multinomial regression analyses are conducted for the two education groups using data from the Survey on Well-Being among Foreign Born Population in Finland (n: 5,247). The study finds important differences but also similarities between the education groups. The higher educated group most commonly possesses abundant social capital (i.e. extensive bonding and bridging relationships), while in the lower education group, the proportion of people with scarce social capital (limited bonding and bridging relationships) outnumbers those with abundant capital by over twofold. A satisfactory level of income emerges as the single most important underlying factor that both education groups draw from to build abundant social capital, but it is a far more common characteristic in the higher education group. Yet, income is not enough to explain the disparity between the education groups. Furthermore, the migration-related characteristics shield the higher education group from scarce or one-sided social capital. The lower educated group derive benefits from education obtained in the new home country. Individual characteristics outweigh the importance of context-related factors for social capital development.