Social Networks and Labor Markets: How Strong Ties Relate to Job Finding on Facebook's Social Network

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Gee, Laura K.; Jones, Jason; Burke, Moira
• 署名单位: Tufts University; State University of New York (SUNY) System; Stony Brook University; Facebook Inc
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF LABOR ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0734-306X
• DOI: 10.1086/686225
• 发表日期: 2017
• 页码: 485-518
• 关键词: weak-ties; information networks; EMPLOYMENT; search; strength; QUALITY; friends; MODEL

摘要

Social networks are important for finding jobs, but which ties are most useful? Granovetter has suggested that weak ties are more valuable than strong ties, since strong ties have redundant information, while weak ties have new information. Using 6 million Facebook users' data, we find evidence for the opposite. We proxy for job help by identifying people who eventually work with a pre-existing friend. Using objective tie strength measures and our job help proxy, we find that most people are helped through one of their numerous weak ties but a single stronger tie is significantly more valuable at the margin.