The Impact of Social Capital on The Earnings of Puerto Rican Migrants

There is a paucity of studies examining the relationship between Puerto Ricans' social capital and their earnings. I utilized data from the Latin American Migration Project (collected in 1998 and 1999) to test five hypotheses derived from social capital theory to predict the hourly earnings of Puerto Rican migrants. My study illustrates that Puerto Rican migrants' social capital is positively related with their earnings. Interestingly, the social capital effects only pertain to Puerto Rican females. Additionally, Puerto Rican migrants do not benefit from ethnic solidarity in terms of increased wages. My analyses point toward social capital's ability to provide important labor market information to Puerto Rican females, which they appear to use to acquire jobs paying higher wages.Social capital theory has been applied to many different phenomenon including banking, education, immigration, labor markets, and nation building (Massey et al. 1987 Massey, Douglas S., Rafael Alarcón, Jorge Durand, Humberto González. 1987.Return to Aztlan: The Social Process of International Migration from Western Mexico. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. 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Within the immigration field, social capital has been linked with the migration process, labor market outcomes, and attainment of citizenship (Massey et al. 1987 Massey, Douglas S., Rafael Alarcón, Jorge Durand, Humberto González. 1987.Return to Aztlan: The Social Process of International Migration from Western Mexico. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. [Google Scholar]; Baker 2000 Baker, Susan Gonzalez. 2000. “From Latin American Immigrant to ‘Hispanic’ Citizen: The Role of Social Capital in Seeking U.S. Citizenship.” Social Science Quarterly 81: 1053–63.[Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Aguilera and Massey 2003 Aguilera, Michael B. and Douglas S. Massey. 2003. “Social Capital and the Wages of Mexican Migrants: New Hypotheses and Tests.” Social Forces 82: 673–703.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]; Fussell 2004 Fussell, Elizabeth. 2004. “Sources of Mexico's Migration Stream: Rural, Urban, and Border Migrants to the United States.” Social Forces 82: 937–67.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Unfortunately, Puerto Ricans have been unstudied within this massive literature about social capital. Additionally, gender differences in returns to social capital are only just beginning to be recognized and there is little agreement as to whether males or females benefit most from social capital. I studied the relationship between social capital and labor market outcomes of Puerto Rican migrants, paying special attention to differences in gender.