Employment, Gender, and Social Ties among Mexican Immigrants

Gretchen Livingston, University of Pennsylvania

Most research regarding social networks and immigrant economic outcomes has failed to take a gender-sensitive approach to this issue. This is problematic, given that there are typically sex differences in network composition, and particularly given the qualitative evidence that immigrant men and women experience very different returns to their social ties. I consider how gender interacts to affect the likelihood of mobilizing social ties to obtain employment, and how this tie mobilization differentially affects employment outcomes for Mexican men and women.