Cristobal Young, Benjamin Cornwell, Barum Park, Nan Feng
Sociological Science May 12, 2025
10.15195/v12.a14
Abstract
What is the relationship between inequality and social ties? Do personal networks, group memberships, and connections to social resources help level the playing field, or do they reinforce economic disparities? We examine two core empirical issues: the degree of inequality in social ties and their consolidation with income. Using 142,000 person-wave observations from 15 high-quality U.S. data sets, we measure the quantity and quality of social ties and examine their distribution. Our findings show that (1) the Gini coefficient for social ties often exceeds that of income and (2) social ties are concentrated among those with the highest incomes. We introduce an overall inequality–consolidation curve, demonstrating that social ties generally reinforce economic inequality. However, we identify one key exception: there is no class gradient in the use of social ties for job search. These findings contribute to debates about the role of social ties in perpetuating or mitigating inequality.
What is the relationship between inequality and social ties? Do personal networks, group memberships, and connections to social resources help level the playing field, or do they reinforce economic disparities? We examine two core empirical issues: the degree of inequality in social ties and their consolidation with income. Using 142,000 person-wave observations from 15 high-quality U.S. data sets, we measure the quantity and quality of social ties and examine their distribution. Our findings show that (1) the Gini coefficient for social ties often exceeds that of income and (2) social ties are concentrated among those with the highest incomes. We introduce an overall inequality–consolidation curve, demonstrating that social ties generally reinforce economic inequality. However, we identify one key exception: there is no class gradient in the use of social ties for job search. These findings contribute to debates about the role of social ties in perpetuating or mitigating inequality.
 | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. |
Reproducibility Package: All code, and all data that can be publicly shared, is available at OSF (https://osf.io/ky4ws/). The package also includes information about requesting access to confidential data sets, such as the Addhealth restricted-use data.
- Citation: Young, Cristobal, Benjamin Cornwell, Barum Park, Nan Feng. 2025. “Inequality and Social Ties: Evidence from 15 U.S. Data sets” Sociological Science 12: 294-321.
- Received: September 5, 2024
- Accepted: March 17, 2025
- Editors: Arnout van de Rijt, Filiz Garip
- DOI: 10.15195/v12.a14