Study Of Social Networks In Shanghai Migrant Workers In The Job Search Process

The research of social network is a important field of western sociology, and job-searching course is a subject of social network research. Although American market economy is well developed, many people still pay much attention to their social networks during their job-hunting shown from lots of research results. In China, there have been many relative theoretical discussions; but in many positive researches, either the objects aren't peasant workers, or they were conducted some years ago. Shanghai city is the economic center of China, and its market economy is well developed. It's necessary to explore the social networks that peasant workers are used to hunt job in city.The author refers to correlative theories and approaches to discuss the status quo and characteristics of peasant workers' social networks used in their job-hunting relative to their personal variables.The paper applies positive investigation approach. The questionnaire data were obtained from peasant workers who have ever hunted jobs in Shanghai (N=215). In order to discuss deeply, the thesis adopted both quantitative and qualitative analyses.Through analyzing the questionnaire data, the paper shows the size of the peasant workers' social networks .On the basis of it, the author deals with two issues: (l)the size of the peasant workers' social networks correlates partly to the period of working in city; (2)it has little positive effect on the workers' job-hunting.Next, the paper discusses the constitution of the peasant workers' social networks and analyzes three conclusions drawn from the questionnaire data: (l)there is no prominent correlation between the constitution of the peasant workers' social networks and their ages; (2)the high values of the constitution of social network have little prominent positive effect on the good jobs hunted; (3)comparing with male peasant workers, the relative rates of the constitution of the female's networks are larger, and taking marriage variable into account, among the married peasant workers, the male are inclined to use strong ties more than the female do during job-hunting, but most workers' salary increases via the help of social networks.Then from gender, education and occupational perspectives, the paper analyzes the homophyly and heterogeneity of the peasant workers' social networks.At last, the thesis summarizes the status quo of peasant workers' social networks used in their job-hunting. What's more, it discusses difference of gender and cultures relative to social network, the advantages and disadvantages of research method and soon.