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This study investigates the characteristics that affect access to social capital for employees in a single industrial firm in Sweden, and the impact of their social capital on their monthly salaries. The results demonstrate that being a member of a stigmatised immigrant group is associated with a substantial social capital deficit. This deficit arises because immigrant workers are embedded in social networks that constrain their ability to acquire valuable social resources or are excluded from social networks with valuable resources. Another finding is that the average salary earned by members of stigmatised immigrant groups is lower than that earned by native-born workers. The observed wage gap cannot be explained by ‘human capital’ variables. However, when social capital variables were taken into account, wage gaps noticeably shrank, which indicates that part of the wage disadvantage experienced by immigrants is likely to represent the impact of unequal access to social capital.

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