Partidos Politicos Mexicanos

Social Networks, Gender, and Immigrant Incorporation: Resources and Constraints Jacqueline Maria Hagan American Sociological Review, Vol. 63, No. 1. (Feb., 1998), pp. 55-67.
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SOCIAL NETWORKS,
GENDER, AND IMMIGRANT INCORPORATION:
RESOURCES AND CONSTRAINTS*

Jacqueline Maria Hagan
University of Houston Most research on social networks and immigrant incorporation focuses on the short-term and positive functions of networks, neglecting changes in networks over time. I present a dynamic and variable portrayal of networks todemonstrate how they gradually assume different forms and fitnctinns for wonzen and for inen that differentially affect settlement outcomes, particularly opportunities to become legal. The gendered social relations of neighborhood, work, and voluntary associations interact to produce this outcome. The conclusions suggest that social networks can both strengthen and weaken over time, can changedzfferentially for different segments of the immigrant community, and therefore can have disparate effects on incorporation. n their attempts to understand contemporary migration to industrialized nations, researchers focus increasingly on the concept of social networks. In the migration literature, networks refer primarily to personal relationships based on family, kin, friendship, and community(Boyd 1989:639). Current migration research emphasizes social networks in various stages of the migration process, including (1) decisions to migrate (Grasmuck and Pessar 199 I), (2) direction and persistence of migration flows (Massey et al. 1987), (3) transnational links (Kearney 1995), and (4) settlement patterns and incorporation (Hagan 1994; Massey et al. 1987). Research on social networks andimmigrant incorporation emphasizes how networks reduce the short-term costs of settlement. In the initial stage of settlement, migrants' networks in the receiving area provide social capital to assist them in adapting
" Direct correspondence to Jacqueline Hagan, Department of Sociology, University of Houston, Houston, Texas, 77204-3474 Cjhagan@uh.edu). This research was supported by the Centerfor Immigration Research at the University of Houston, the Ford Foundation, and the Institute for Multiculturalism and International Labor at SUNY-Binghamton. I thank Susan Baker, Janet Chafetz, Karl Eschbach, Jon Lorence, Lindsay Lowell, Nestor Rodriguez, Anna Zakos, the ASR reviewers, and the previous ASR Editor (Paula England) for their valuable comments.

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