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Journal of Undergraduate Research

Keywords

time investment, family social capital, child's labor market

College

Family, Home, and Social Sciences

Department

Sociology

Abstract

The troubling trend of increasing economic inequality in the United States can be partially attributed to one’s background; every person in the United States is born with a degree of advantage or disadvantage. However, the extent to which this initial inequality affects labor market outcomes, such as income, has yet to be clearly defined. An individual’s background can be understood in terms of capital, which has been conceptualized in three ways: financial, human and social (Coleman 1988). Family financial capital is commonly measured by income, while human capital can be measured by parental education level. Social capital is a more ambiguous concept but has been defined as the transmission and creation of information, obligations, and norms across relationships (Coleman 1988). Previous studies have used family structure, parental involvement, parental attachment, and parental supervision to measure family social capital (Hoffmann and Dufur 2008). While each kind of capital is important, high levels of social capital ensure that parents can effectively transmit financial and human capital to their children. Capital is created primarily in the home and then in school (Parcel, Dufur, Zito 2010). Family social capital tends to have an earlier and greater positive effect on academic and behavioral outcomes than school social capital, but both are important arenas for the creation and accumulation of capital (Crosnoe 2004; Parcel and Dufur 2009).

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