Friends and Fortunes

‘The authors pull back from the network details of social capital to capture two broad features across individuals, groups, and territories: (1) social connectivity is beneficial, and (2) that connectivity is concentrated, as are material resources, in the hands of a minority. In establishing a general foundation, the book should be productive as a reading for undergraduates, or a platform from which many a doctoral dissertation could launch.’ Ronald Burt, University of Chicago and Bocconi University

‘An exceptionally comprehensive, empirically rich examination of inequality in social connectedness in the United States. Friends and Fortunes thoroughly documents the appreciable unevenness in distributions of individual social capital indicators, including numerous personal network features and organizational affiliations. It then shows how access to these social resources differs by income and age (especially) as well as race/ethnicity and gender – thereby reinforcing rather than counteracting fault lines of material inequality.’ Peter V. Marsden, Edith and Benjamin Geisinger Professor of Sociology, Harvard University

‘This book offers the most comprehensive portrait to date of how social capital, the resources embedded in social ties, is distributed across the American population and how that distribution has evolved over the past half century. Bringing together an unprecedented range of data and linking classic theory to new empirical evidence, it shows that social capital is both a driver and a consequence of economic inequality, making it essential reading for scholars and students of inequality, social networks, and contemporary American society.’ Filiz Garip, Princeton University