Browsing by Author "Sun, Lianyi"

Employment is important for the immigrants’ legal stays and subsistence. This research detects the effects of bonding and bridging social capital in achieving immigrants’ job-seeking goals. In this thesis, social capital is defined as resource which are embedded in immigrants’ intra-ethnic and inter-ethnic relationships for immigrants to achieve job-seeking goals. Loosely defined, bonding social capital refers to resource that embedded in within-group connections, while bridging social capital refers to resource that embedded in between-group connections. This group is ethnic immigrant group in this thesis. Further, this thesis observes how the interactions between bonding and bridging social capital impact on immigrants’ accesses to jobs. Moreover, this thesis explores immigrants’ intimacies with social capital through comparing their age and career fields. In-depth interview was adopted to collect data. Data analysis was conducted through line-by-line coding. This research finds out that both bonding and bridging social play the role of broker who link immigrants to the local labour market. However, their roles as the brokers vary by when and how. Bonding social capital makes efficient influences on immigrants’ job-seeking goals at the very early stage of immigration. The unconditional ethnic-based supports from bonding social capital are highly steady. However, compared with the bridging contacts, the quality of job referrals made by bonding contacts are less appreciated. Bridging social capital accelerates the process of immigrants’ job-seeking through helping them earn local work experiences, which are vital for finding the following full-time job. Bonding and bridging social capital impacted each other mutually. When bonding and bridging social capital cooperate, immigrants are likely to attain accesses to richer resources. When bridging contacts witness immigrants becoming estranged with bonding contacts and become close with bridging contacts, immigrants’ bridging social capital tends to be enriched. Younger immigrants are less intimate to vertical bonding social capital, which is embedded in the immigrants’ powerful contacts inside of the immigrant community. Immigrants whose career fields require highly quantifiable career skills tend to have short-term needs of social capital for pursuing jobs.