The Impact of Social Capital on Youth Employment Quality: An Empirical Study Based on Social Network Analysis

Yaohui Li; Qing Zhong; Shiqi Huang

doi:10.54691/vemyrd93

Authors

Yaohui Li AmazingX Academy, Shenzhen, China
Qing Zhong AmazingX Academy, Shenzhen, China
Shiqi Huang AmazingX Academy, Shenzhen, China

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.54691/vemyrd93

Keywords:

Social capital; youth employment quality; job search information breadth; social network analysis; mediation analysis; China.

Abstract

This paper examines how social capital shapes employment quality among Chinese youth and identifies job search information breadth as a key transmission channel. Using survey data from 2,318 young workers across six Chinese cities and a reconstructed job referral network of 9,742 weighted ties, we construct entropy-weighted composite indices for both social capital and employment quality, drawing on position generator data, referral network centrality measures, and a five-dimensional job quality framework. Ordinary least squares regressions with city and industry fixed effects show that social capital exerts a significant positive effect on youth employment quality, with a one standard deviation increase in the social capital index raising the employment quality index by approximately 12.7 percent of a standard deviation. Three-step mediation analysis reveals that job search information breadth partially mediates this relationship, accounting for 30.3 percent of the total effect, while the remaining share operates through a signalling channel in which referrals resolve employer screening uncertainty. Heterogeneity tests show that the returns to network resources are larger for holders of rural household registration than for urban registration holders, and larger for young workers without tertiary qualifications than for those with degrees, indicating that social capital partially substitutes for institutional access and formal credentials. Exponential family random graph estimates further show that referral ties form preferentially between individuals of similar occupational status, which reproduces the stratification of informational access across the youth labour market. Robustness checks using an alternative wage-based dependent variable and an instrumental variable strategy based on peer social capital within the same neighbourhood and birth cohort confirm the stability of the core findings.

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