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Title: What You Know or Who You Know? Occupation-Specific Work Experience and Job Matching Through Social Networks
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. McDonald, Steve
What You Know or Who You Know? Occupation-Specific Work Experience and Job Matching Through Social Networks
Social Science Research 40,6 (November 2011): 1664-1675.
Also: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0049089X11001074
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Elsevier
Keyword(s): Employment; Gender Differences; Job Search; Social Capital; Work Experience

While work experience is generally seen as an indicator of human capital, it may also reflect the accumulation of social capital. This study examines how work experience facilitates informal access to employment—that is, being matched with a new employer through an informal search or informal recruitment through the non-search process (without engaging in a job search). Results from fixed effects regression on panel data from the NLSY show that experience is related to informal entry into new jobs, though in a very specific way. The odds of being informally recruited into a new job improve as work experience in related occupations rises, but this relationship holds only among men. These findings highlight the social benefits of occupation-specific work experience that accrue to men but not to women, suggesting an alternative explanation for the gender disparity in wage returns to experience.
Bibliography Citation
McDonald, Steve. "What You Know or Who You Know? Occupation-Specific Work Experience and Job Matching Through Social Networks ." Social Science Research 40,6 (November 2011): 1664-1675.