Neighborhood-based networks, social resources, and labor market participation in two Dutch neighborhoods

Numerous neighborhood effect studies have reported on the negative consequences of living in disadvantaged neighborhoods for various employment outcomes, such as the duration of welfare dependence and level of income. One hypothesis for explaining this relationship is the social isolation hypothesis, which assumes that low-income residents in disadvantaged neighborhoods are worse off than their counterparts in mixed neighborhoods because they rely on other disadvantaged neighbors to find work. These ideas are addressed by comparing survey data on social resources in the social networks of residents in a low-income neighborhood and a socioeconomically mixed neighborhood in the Dutch city of The Hague. Findings show that living in a low-income neighborhood influences labor market participation indirectly by limiting residents' access to job information. However, differences in access to job information cannot be explained by the high degree of neighborhood orientation in the social networks of residents in the low-income neighborhood.