When Do Connections Count?

People from particular ethnic groups will help each other out by sharing leads to good jobs. That’s the conventional wisdom, but is it true?

“Ethnic solidarity within co-ethnic firms has been portrayed as benefiting immigrant workers because it enables them to find employment in the United States despite their skill levels, limited English ability, and discrimination,” says Michael Aguilera, postdoctoral fellow in Rice University’s sociology department. “Some studies find that immigrants working within ethnic businesses earn higher wages than those working within nonethnic businesses, so I wanted to test whether ethnic solidarity improves Mexican migrants’ labor markets.”

Aguilera analyzed 1,000 cases from the Mexican Migration Project’s data for Mexican migrants from 81 communities in Mexico. Compiled from 1982 to 2000, the database provides detailed labor market information regarding migrants interviewed in Mexico and the United States about their experiences while living in the United States. “My study,” Aguilera says, “shatters the ethnic-solidarity hypothesis.”

Aguilera says that when he compared friends, relatives, and paisanos (countrymen) as sources of job leads, he found that the least effective network was the paisano. “They provided access to extremely low-paying jobs and longer hours,” Aguilera says, “whereas networks of friends and relatives proved to be the best way to find good jobs.” An average Mexican worker employed by a Latino boss earned about $7.05 an hour, but if that same worker used a relative network, the wage was $8.34. If that same worker used a paisano network, the pay was only $2.75.

“People who are relatives or friends have a much stronger connection to migrants than someone who is only from the same country and doesn’t personally know the migrant,” Aguilera explains. Relatives and friends will vouch for each other and attest to a person’s skills and work ethic, helping their acquaintances get better jobs, but migrants who used paisanos as references were likely to end up in low-skilled, low-wage jobs without much authority.

“The evidence suggests that Mexican migrants can rely on obligation and trust of their familial and friendship networks to provide them with jobs within ethnic businesses paying comparable or higher wages than white firms, even though these jobs often are located in the informal economy,” Aguilera says. “Obligation works to provide higher-paying jobs to those using familial and friendship networks, while at the same time providing employers with a reliable labor supply.”

Aguilera presented his findings last fall at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association in San Francisco.

—B. J. Almond