IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/soinre/v123y2015i3p897-917.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Psychological Well-Being and Brokerage in Friendship Networks of Young Swedes

Author

Listed:
  • Gerald Mollenhorst
  • Christofer Edling
  • Jens Rydgren

Abstract

All ethnic groups have norms and values according to which one is expected to behave. Immigrants in particular have personal networks that simultaneously consist of co-ethnics and friends of a different ethnic background. As a consequence, they may be accustomed to the behavior, norms, and values of their own ethnic group, and also be expected to behave according to those of another ethnic group. This may either lead to ego-gratification and the strengthening and enrichment of their personality, or to feelings of stress and non-acceptance if they cannot behave fully in accordance with the expectations of their friends. This study addresses the association between interethnic open triads in networks (i.e., brokerage) and individual psychological well-being. That is, we examine whether having intra-ethnic and interethnic relationships with friends who are not also friends with each other, is either positively or negatively associated with psychological well-being. Using (network) data from a large sample (N = 2,942; age = 19) of native Swedes and first- and second-generation immigrants from former Yugoslavia and Iran (all born in 1990 and currently living in Sweden), we show that interethnic brokerage is negatively associated with psychological well-being, which implies that the different norms, values and corresponding behaviors that prevail in different ethnic groups to which the ethnic broker is connected may result in internal and external conflicts, to feelings that one is not fully accepted by any of these groups, and ultimately to a lower level of psychological well-being. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015

Suggested Citation

  • Gerald Mollenhorst & Christofer Edling & Jens Rydgren, 2015. "Psychological Well-Being and Brokerage in Friendship Networks of Young Swedes," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 123(3), pages 897-917, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:soinre:v:123:y:2015:i:3:p:897-917
    DOI: 10.1007/s11205-014-0766-8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11205-014-0766-8
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11205-014-0766-8?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chiswick, Barry R & Miller, Paul M, 1996. "Ethnic Networks and Language Proficiency among Immigrants," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 9(1), pages 19-35, February.
    2. Christofer Edling & Jens Rydgren, 2012. "Neighborhood and Friendship Composition in Adolescence," SAGE Open, , vol. 2(4), pages 21582440124, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Evgeni Varshaver & Anna Rocheva, 2021. "“Homeland-Rooted” or Acquired in the Receiving Society: How Does the Composition of Migrants’ “Co-Ethnic” Ties Affect Their Patterns of Integration?," Journal of International Migration and Integration, Springer, vol. 22(1), pages 347-368, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gil Epstein & Shmuel Nitzan, 2006. "The struggle over migration policy," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 19(4), pages 703-723, October.
    2. Abdurrahman B. Aydemir & Erkan Duman, 2021. "Migrant Networks and Destination Choice: Evidence from Moves across Turkish Provinces," Koç University-TUSIAD Economic Research Forum Working Papers 2109, Koc University-TUSIAD Economic Research Forum.
    3. Una Okonkwo Osili & Anna L. Paulson, 2006. "What can we learn about financial access from U.S. immigrants?," Working Paper Series WP-06-25, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    4. Constant, Amelie F. & Gataullina, Liliya & Zimmermann, Klaus F., 2009. "Ethnosizing immigrants," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 69(3), pages 274-287, March.
    5. Gil S. Epstein & Odelia Heizler-Cohen, 2016. "The Formation of Immigrant Networks in the Short and the Long Run," Economies, MDPI, vol. 4(3), pages 1-16, July.
    6. Javier Torres, 2013. "Repeat after me, my name is Javier: immigrants english prociency improvement four years after arrival," Working Papers 13-03, Centro de Investigación, Universidad del Pacífico.
    7. Abramitzky, Ran & Boustan, Leah & Catron, Peter & Connor, Dylan & Voigt, Rob, 2021. "Refugees without Assistance: English-Language Attainment and Economic Outcomes in the Early Twentieth Century," SocArXiv 429jp, Center for Open Science.
    8. Bogatzki, Tamara, 2021. "Heterogeneity in migration network effects across cultures," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Migration, Integration, Transnationalization SP VI 2021-102, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    9. Nicodemo, Catia & Raya, Josep M., 2018. "Does Juan Carlos or Nelson Obtain a Larger Price Cut in the Spanish Housing Market?," IZA Discussion Papers 11811, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Alejandra Cattaneo & Rainer Winkelmann, 2005. "Earnings Differentials between German and French speakers in Switzerland," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 141(II), pages 191-212, June.
    11. Anna Piil Damm, 2009. "Ethnic Enclaves and Immigrant Labor Market Outcomes: Quasi-Experimental Evidence," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 27(2), pages 281-314, April.
    12. Monteiro, Stein, 2021. "Cultural Assimilation: Learning and Sorting," MPRA Paper 110997, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Martin Klinthäll & Susanne Urban, 2016. "The strength of ethnic ties: Routes into the labour market in spaces of segregation," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 53(1), pages 3-16, January.
    14. Verdier, Thierry & Zenou, Yves, 2017. "The role of social networks in cultural assimilation," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 15-39.
    15. Gil S. Epstein, 2003. "Labor Market Interactions Between Legal and Illegal Immigrants," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(1), pages 30-43, February.
    16. Buly Cardak & James Ted McDonald, 2004. "Neighbourhood effects, preference heterogeneity and immigrant educational attainment," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(6), pages 559-572.
    17. Alexander M. Danzer & Firat Yaman, 2013. "Do Ethnic Enclaves Impede Immigrants' Integration? Evidence from a Quasi-experimental Social-interaction Approach," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(2), pages 311-325, May.
    18. Anna Damm & Michael Rosholm, 2010. "Employment effects of spatial dispersal of refugees," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 8(1), pages 105-146, March.
    19. Teresa Casey & Christian Dustmann, 2008. "Intergenerational Transmission of Language Capital and Economic Outcomes," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 43(3), pages 4660-4687.
    20. Abdulloev, Ilhom & Epstein, Gil S. & Gang, Ira N., 2014. "Ethnic Goods and Immigrant Assimilation," IZA Discussion Papers 8004, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:soinre:v:123:y:2015:i:3:p:897-917. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.