Inter-Ethnic Marriage and Intergenerational Transmission of Social Capital: A Longitudinal Study of Young Swedes

• In Event: 434 - Section on Children and Youth Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 09. Parental Influence on Youth Outcomes

Abstract

How does the access to social capital among children from ethnically mixed marriages differ from those from non-mixed marriages? The data used for this study come from a two-wave (2009, 2013) panel survey of young Swedish adults with and without immigration background. The key findings are that 1) the role of interethnic marriage negatively influences access to social capital when controlling for socio-economic status of parents and ethnic concentration in neighbourhood, that 2) the direction and strength of the association does not change significantly over a four year period of major school to work transition, and that 3) the intergenerational transmission of social capital is conditional on whether the individual lived in Sweden during the early formative years. Implications for our understanding of the relationship between interethnic relations and inequality in social capital, individualisation and modernity, and agency and constraints over the life course are discussed.

Authors

• Gokhan Kaya, Lund University

• Christofer Edling, Jacobs University

• Jens Rydgren, Stockholm University