Contacts and contexts

Theories concerning a possible link between contact use and earnings tend to focus on person-based explanations: (1) rational job-seekers choose between multiple job offers and pick the best available one based on reservation wages (Montgomery, 1992 and Krug, in this issue); (2) people make friends with others who share similar statuses, making the link between high-status contacts and earnings spurious (Mouw, 2003); (3) contact-users mobilize job contacts to compensate for deficits in their human capital (Lin, 2000). Such explanations however tend to neglect the larger role of institutional factors. Instead of focusing on the job search as a purely instrumental process, I argue for a need to analyze job contacts and status attainment in terms of more contextual and embedded arrangements.

► Contacts must be analysed in context. ► Job search models are often over-individualized. ► Job search models are often over-instrumentalist. ► People may often benefit from ties they do not mobilize.