Study examines the role of social networks in overcoming poverty

Study conducted at the Metropolitan Studies Center-FAPESP demonstrates how social networks influence poor people’s chances of obtaining better living conditions.

By Karina Toledo

Agência FAPESP – The role of social networks in overcoming poverty and segregation is the topic of the book Opportunities and Deprivation in the Urban South, released in the United Kingdom by Ashgate.

The book is based on the thesis formulated by Eduardo Cesar Leão Marques, a professor in the Department of Political Science at Universidade de São Paulo (USP) and a researcher at the Metropolitan Studies Center (CEM), which is a FAPESP Research, Innovation and Dissemination Center (CEPID) as well as a National Science and Technology Institute (INCT). For the book, the researcher expanded the data collection by conducting qualitative research on the daily network use of the individuals included in the study.

The study is based on the widely accepted presupposition in the national and international scientific literature that spatial segregation tends to produce social segregation. According to Marques, this assertion implies that although two people may have the same income, one of them may experience inferior living conditions and future prospects if he or she is spatially isolated, with less access to public services, information and contact with social groups other than his or her own.

The objective of the study was to investigate to what extent the relationship networks of individuals in poverty could influence this association. Marques stated that “Our hypothesis is that there would be different degrees of isolation according to the types of social networks that people have.”

To test the theory, CEM researchers analyzed the social networks of 210 people in seven poor regions of São Paulo. “We selected the residents of segregated favelas, shantytowns located near wealthy neighborhoods and in industrial districts, public housing and tenements. The researcher also investigated the networks of 30 middle class people to have a basis of comparison,” explained Marques.

The information was then related to a series of social indicators. This process allowed the researcher to identify the influence that relationship networks have on interviewees’ income and on the probability that they will be employed and find employment with some degree of job security and stability.

“We found that people with a large part of their social network in organizational environments – such as companies, community associations, churches and political organizations – have better living conditions than individuals with very local networks that are centered around neighbors, friends and family,” Marques commented.

According to the results of the study, contact with different people assists individuals in overcoming poverty because it promotes the circulation of information, economic resources and cultural repertoires.

“The size of the social network made little difference. It can be a medium-sized network, but not too local or homogenous. If a poor person has contact only with equally poor or unemployed people, the chances of changing that situation are remote,” Marques commented.

São Paulo and Salvador

After identifying the best- and worst-quality networks, the CEM researchers selected 40 interviewees to participate in a qualitative study on their social network usage. “We wanted to understand how people mobilized these contacts, and how these networks were configured and changed over time,” Marques stated.

The results of the investigation had already been published in a 2010 book released in Brazil by Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). However, according to Marques, the recently released work in the United Kingdom is not merely a translation of the study into English.

“The main objective of the Portuguese-language book was to introduce into national debate the concept that poverty is also produced by a standard of interrelations, not only individual characteristics, and by the standards of individuals’ decisions. In Europe and the United States, there is already a vast body of literature on this topic. The English-language book, therefore, dialogues with a series of other hypotheses in the international debate on the different effects of social networks, as well as the associations between social networks and segregation,” he explained.

On August 20, the group released Redes Sociais no Brasil: Sociabilidade, Organizações Civis e Políticas Públicas (Social Networks in Brazil: Sociability, Civil Organizations and Public Policy). Under Marques’ coordination, the book compares data from the study conducted in São Paulo with the results of another arm of the study in Salvador, Bahia, where 153 people were interviewed.

“Salvador is a city with a very different social structure than that of São Paulo. The poverty is different, the labor market is different, and the sociability is different. But social networks are similar and their effect on poverty is also similar,” Marques explained.

• Opportunities and Deprivation in the Urban South
  Author: Eduardo Cesar Leão Marques
  Release: May 2012
  Price: 99.95 USD
  Pages: 198
  Purchase the book at www.ashgate.com/isbn/9781409442707.