Racial Inequality in Socioeconomic Status Perpetuated by Social Capital with a Focus on Asian Americans

Based on Lin’s theory of inequality in social capital and segmented assimilation theory, this study examines whether Asian Americans across different generations have equal access to social capital and whether the social capital they do access has the same impact as the social capital of white Americans. It seeks to determine whether and to what degree 1.5 and second generation Asian Americans experience racial disparities in socioeconomic status (SES), i.e., educational attainment, earnings, supervisory position, and subjective social status, at the time of early adulthood and after controlling for human capital factors, and whether any remaining differences between white and Asian American SES can be explained by access to social capital, i.e., mentoring relationship and friendship networks, and its impact. Data were drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), a nationally representative study of adolescents attending secondary schools in academic year of 1994-95. In the first empirical chapter, the differences in SES between white Americans and each group of Asian Americans are examined after controlling for human capital factors using regression models. These results demonstrate that adjusting for human capital, Asian Americans do not consistently achieve parity with white Americans and there are important differences by generation status, gender, and the SES under consideration. There are differences in the SES of white and Asian Americans that vary depending on social group and outcome. The second empirical chapter focuses on mentorship and the impact of mentoring. Asian Americans were found to be less likely to have a mentor. Asian Americans were also found to have different types of mentors compared to white Americans, depending on their social group. While mentoring relationships are closely related to higher SES for white Americans, they are not consistently related to SES for Asian Americans. The third chapter examines the nature, i.e., number and racial homogeneity, and impact of friendship. Asian Americans have a smaller number and less homogeneous of friends and the nature of friendship is positively related to SES. However, the difference in SES is not fully explained by the differences in the number and homogeneity of friendship. For white Americans, the number and homogeneity of friendship is positively correlated to higher SES, but the number and homogeneity of friendship is not always positively related to higher SES for Asian Americans. The number of friends in young adulthood is positively related to eventual earnings. All three empirical chapters together confirm that social capital of Asian Americans is different from that of white Americans; they have lower access to social capital and their social capital is not as impactful. Asian Americans, however, are successful socioeconomically even without social capital in mentoring relationships and friendships. Instead of social capital, human capital factors explain much of the SES attainment of Asian Americans. It is also discussed why Asian Americans have lower social capital and their social capital is not as effective in promoting SES based on the theory of inequality in social capital and existing empirical research findings