Segmented Social Capital and Ethnic Diversity in the Work Place

Work places employing many highly skilled and low skilled migrant workers and members of ethnic minorities are interesting focal points for investigations of the potential build-up of social capital along and across ethnic and national lines. Factories, retailer shops, offices etc. represent social spaces with varying degrees of social closure, interaction and formation of social relations between different employees depending on the composition of the work force, the work tasks, working conditions etc. Therefore these social spaces represent sites in which workers may build-up social capital encompassing members of other social and ethnic groups in their networks. However, so far research has paid insufficient attention to the way in which social capital formation among immigrants, ethnic minorities and locals in the work place is influenced by issues such as race and class. Nevertheless, we may expect differences in relation to social capital formation depending on the composition of the work force (highly skilled vs. low skilled workers), working conditions (permanent vs. temporary jobs), ethnic origin (western vs. non-western background) etc. This paper addresses research questions such as: Which is the impact of increasing ethnic diversity among the employees on social capital in the work space? In which ways does social capital formation differ depending on whether the employees at the work place are highly skilled or low skilled as well as on racial and ethnic origin? The analysis will be based on interviews with 49 employees from three highly ethnically and nationally diverse Danish work places. One of these sites employees many highly skilled migrant workers while the two others primarily employees low skilled workers, including low skilled immigrants and ethnic minorities.