Professional Bridges: Migrants’ Ties with Natives and Occupational Advancement

Abstract

This article examines how Romanians in London use native contacts for occupational advancement. Contrary to common associations of ‘bridging’ ties with ‘weak’ ties useful for upward mobility, it illustrates the differentiated nature, role, and resources of native contacts. Drawing on Bourdieu’s capital theory, it shows how weak bridging ties with natives facilitate migrants’ access to better jobs within lower-skilled sectors, whereas strong ties with natives generate distinct cultural resources often required for high-skilled occupations. I consider two strategies of converting strong bridging ties into cultural capital, signalling some limitations of weak ties in facilitating career advancement: mobilizing British friends to act as ‘cultural brokers’, and immersion in British professional networks to acquire and demonstrate local cultural capital. The findings enhance our understanding of bridging social capital and its variable role in enabling upward mobility.

Keywords

bridging social ties cultural capital occupational advancement Romanian migrants

Introduction

Social networks are known to play an important role in migrants’ occupational attainment (Lancee, 2012a). A distinction is often made between ‘bonding’ and ‘bridging’ ties, where ‘bonding’ refers to in-group, homogeneous ties such as those with coethnics (or family members), and ‘bridging’ is used to characterize out-group, heterogeneous ties such as cross-ethnic ones (Putnam, 2000). Whilst the evidence on the role of coethnic ties is mixed, showing that bonding can both help and hinder migrants’ social mobility, bridging ties (with natives) are usually seen to have a positive influence in this area, leading to ‘better’ jobs and occupational status more generally (Kanas et al., 2011; Lancee, 2012a; see also Moroşanu, 2013). Nevertheless, despite the consensus about the benefits of bridging ties, how these ties are mobilized and to what extent they actually help migrants improve their occupational status are insufficiently understood. As several scholars note (Patulny and Svendsen, 2007; Ryan, 2011), bridging ties are mainly examined in quantitative studies, which provide limited insight into their different nature, mobilization, and role in migrants’ career advancement.

Based on qualitative research with Romanians in London, this article examines how migrants use native contacts to expand their career opportunities in order to enhance our understanding of bridging social capital. Drawing on Bourdieu’s (1986) capital theory, it challenges the broadly positive understanding of bridging ties with natives as ‘weak’ ties useful for ‘getting ahead’, showing differences between weak and strong ties with natives, their resources, as well as limitations. Furthermore, it provides deeper insight into how bridging works, documenting migrants’ strategies to convert strong ties with natives into cultural capital useful for upward mobility.

Bridging Ties in the Migration Context

Whilst social networks often facilitate migrants’ labour market incorporation, they are not equally helpful and provide different kinds of resources (Ryan, 2011). According to Briggs’s (1998) distinction, some ties may provide ‘social support’, helping one to ‘get by’, whereas others facilitate ‘social leverage’, yielding resources for ‘getting ahead’, including job information or referrals. Briggs’s distinction is echoed in Putnam’s (2000) conceptualization of ‘bonding’ and ‘bridging’ ties, where the former refer to ties with in-group members (e.g. coethnics or family members), and the latter to out-group members (e.g. cross-ethnic ties). As Putnam (2000: 23, 363) notes, bonding ties are more helpful for ‘getting by’, whereas bridging ties are better for ‘getting ahead’, including occupational attainment.

To highlight the benefits of bridging over bonding, Putnam draws on Granovetter’s ‘strength of weak ties’ argument. Granovetter (1973, 1983) argued that the ‘weak ties’ of acquaintanceship are more beneficial than the ‘strong ties’ of friends and family when it comes to integration into institutions such as the labour market. The strength of tie is defined as a ‘combination of the amount of time, the emotional intensity, the intimacy (mutual confiding), and the reciprocal services which characterize the tie’ (Granovetter, 1973: 1361). Close-knit circles, characterized by intimate contact and frequent interaction, are less likely to share new information, whereas weak ties may act as ‘crucial bridges’ to other networks (Granovetter, 1983: 202), providing access to useful information for those seeking upward mobility (Campbell et al., 1986: 98).

In studies of migrant incorporation, bridging ties are thus often associated with weak ties and their positive outcomes; they are usually understood as cross-ethnic (or more specific-ally native) contacts, whereas bonding ties include coethnics or family members (see Lancee, 2012b; and for a critique, Moroşanu, 2013; Ryan, 2011). Research has mainly focused on the latter, generating mixed findings (Lancee, 2012a; Moroşanu, 2013). In certain respects, coethnics provide vital economic support. Many migrants secure jobs, valuable information, and referrals through intra-ethnic networks (Nee and Sanders, 2001; Portes, 1998), which help compensate for their varied disadvantages. The ethnic enclave, implying spatial concentration of enterprises and relying on ethnic solidarity, may sometimes offer better opportunities for advancement than the mainstream economy (Portes and Bach, 1985). Nevertheless, coethnic ties may also be constraining. In line with the strong ties argument, they are less likely to provide useful information for accessing mainstream institutions (Anthias, 2007: 797; Nee et al., 1994: 854). They can diminish opportunities for mobility, locking migrants (or their descendants) in lower-skilled occupations, linguistic, and social segregation (Lancee, 2012a; Portes, 1998; Rosales, 2014; Ryan, 2011).

As noted in an earlier paper (Moroşanu, 2013), compared to the abundant literature on the advantages and disadvantages of intra-ethnic ties, bridging ties across ethnic bound-aries are much less examined and mainly seen in a positive light (see Kanas et al., 2011; Lancee, 2012a; Leonard and Onyx, 2003; Nannestad et al., 2008; Patulny and Svendsen, 2007; Ryan, 2011). Echoing the weak ties argument, cross-ethnic ties are linked with upward mobility and integration more widely (Lancee, 2012a; Ryan, 2011). My earlier paper examined informal ties and socialization amongst migrants of different origins to illustrate the differentiated nature of (cross-ethnic) bridging ties and some limitations of bridging when confined to non-natives. I now focus on a different form of bridging, migrants’ ties with natives, and occupational advancement.

Native contacts in particular are seen as more likely to lead to ‘good’ jobs in mainstream institutions, providing access to valuable resources that coethnics (and other migrants) do not usually possess (Kanas et al., 2011; Lancee, 2012a; Nee et al., 1994: 854, fn. 5). These may include job information and influence (Granovetter, 1973) but also support with migrants’ job-search process and familiarization with the host-country norms and institutions (Lancee, 2012a). There are some exceptions to this. Examining low-income migrant networks, Domínguez (2011) discusses ‘bridges’ of different strength, and negative aspects too, yet when they involve disadvantaged minorities such as youth gangs. In the case of migrant women’s political incorporation, Gidengil and Stolle (2009) also find that bridging ties are not necessarily more helpful than bonding ones. Furthermore, Leonard and Onyx (2003) challenge the association of bridging and bonding with loose and strong ties respectively, examining networks formed through community organizations.

The tendency to associate native contacts with the ‘better’ employment opportunities afforded by weak ties obscures their variable nature and usefulness for migrants’ career progress, projecting a uniform view of bridging ties. Extending the ‘strength-of-weak-ties’ argument, several studies usefully call attention to the specific resources and status one’s contacts possess, which may differently shape social mobility prospects, in both migration and non-migration contexts (Bian, 1997; Campbell et al., 1986; Cederberg, 2012; Kindler and Szulecka, 2013; Lin, 1999; Ryan, 2011). From this perspective, lower-status individuals may benefit more from reaching out ‘vertically’ to higher-status (rather than simply ‘weak’) contacts, who can share valuable information or exert influence in the job-search process (see Lin, 1999; Ryan, 2011). Examining migrant networks, Ryan (2011) criticizes the common bridging–bonding distinction and its association with weak–strong ties, arguing that ‘horizontal’ (weak) ties linking similarly positioned individuals may generate practical support (see also Moroşanu, 2013) but ‘vertical’ ties to professionals (coethnic or not) may widen career opportunities.

Whilst status and resources clearly make certain weak ties more useful than others, the ability to mobilize ties and acquire particular resources brings back the question of tie strength. Contrary to the common emphasis on weak ties, several network studies show how strong ties sometimes prove preferable, being marked by trust, mutual knowledge, and commitment, and thus higher motivation to provide assistance, in circumstances such as exerting influence, unlawful activities, or preserving one’s reputation (Bian, 1997; Leonard and Onyx, 2003; Lin, 1999; Smith, 2005). Employing insights from these studies in the migration context and Bourdieu’s (1986) capital theory, I contribute to efforts to refine our understanding of bridging ties, and show differences between weak and strong bridging with natives, their role, resources, and mobilization. Romanian migrants’ experience illustrates important limitations of weak ties, and benefits of strong ties with natives for accumulating distinct resources such as local cultural capital required for more prestigious occupations.

Cultural Capital and Migration

Discussing different forms of capital, Bourdieu (1986) highlights the role of cultural and social capital in shaping individuals’ life chances and success, beyond economic resources. Cultural capital comes in three forms: ‘embodied’, ‘institutionalized’, and ‘objectified’. Objectified cultural capital refers to ‘cultural goods’, such as books or works of art. Institutionalized cultural capital is indicated by educational qualifications. Lastly, embodied cultural capital refers to ‘long-lasting dispositions of the mind and body’, which may include cultural competences or manners developed by individuals as part of the process of ‘cultivation, Bildung’ starting in early childhood. For Bourdieu, socialization within the family is key for accumulating embodied cultural capital, contributing to the success of descendants of families rich in cultural capital (1986: 243–46). However, this process continues throughout the life course.

Whilst traditionally associated with ‘high’ culture (Reay, 2004), cultural capital has come to encompass a wider range of knowledge and competences, which does not conflict with Bourdieu’s ideas (Lareau and Weininger, 2003). As Bourdieu later clarifies, cultural capital should be called ‘informational capital to give the notion its full generality’ (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992: 119). In exploring the role of embodied cultural capital in migrants’ career trajectories, I employ this wider understanding, which resonates with migration research, and includes language competence and accents, attitudes, knowledge of cultural norms and practices, for example, specific to the host society and work environments, which are crucial in the job-search process (Erel, 2010: 648–9; Kelly and Lusis, 2006: 834, 843; Nee and Sanders, 2001: 392; Waters, 2006: 185–8).

Apart from cultural capital, social capital, which comprises resources gained through membership in social groups and networks (Bourdieu, 1986: 248–9), may also enhance career opportunities, via referrals or job-related information (Kelly and Lusis, 2006: 834). A major property of Bourdieu’s forms of capital is their convertibility into each other. My analysis of migrants’ strategies to build ties with natives and access matching employment will show that social capital may be converted into economic capital but also cultural capital (Portes, 1998: 4), convertible, in turn, into economic returns.

In migration studies, cultural capital tends to refer to the resources migrants bring from home and seek to use at destination (see Erel, 2010), with varying degrees of success. As indicated earlier, these include knowledge of cultural norms and practices, language skills, educational qualifications and employment experience (Nee and Sanders, 2001: 392). Drawing on Bourdieu, several scholars emphasize migrants’ disadvantaged position in the host society labour market, where local degrees, knowledge, and experience often constitute prerequisites for prestigious occupations (Cederberg, 2012; Erel, 2010; Favell, 2003). Migrants’ home-earned degrees and experience tend to remain unrecognized (Bauder, 2005; Erel, 2010) or unappealing to native employers, who may be unfamiliar with them, and unable to compare them with their local counterparts (Csedő, 2008; Kanas et al., 2009). This often leads to de-skilling, a trend identified amongst recent East European migrants in Britain more generally (e.g. McDowell, 2009).

Migrants’ non-recognition of skills and qualifications is sometimes examined from a ‘human capital’ perspective, which emphasizes the skills acquired through education and work experience (Nee and Sanders, 2001: 392). However, as Kelly and Lusis (2006: 834) argue, these constitute ‘only a part’ of one’s cultural capital, missing the ‘embodied’ competences essential for migrants who navigate a different labour market and work culture (see also Nee and Sanders, 2001: 392–3, who develop the term ‘human-cultural capital’). Familiarity with the language, culture, and labour market ‘rules’ at destination crucially impact migrants’ progress, unless they choose to enter the ethnic economy (Bauder, 2005; Nee and Sanders, 2001).

Following these scholars, I employ Bourdieu’s cultural capital framework. Whilst migration research using Bourdieu often emphasizes how migrants develop and seek to validate their cultural capital at destination (Erel, 2010; Nee and Sanders, 2001) or use it upon return home (Kelly and Lusis, 2006; Waters, 2006), I draw on Bourdieu to enhance our understanding of migrants’ bridging ties with natives (local social capital) for occupational advancement. Native contacts are not only mobilized for information about job openings or influence but can also help migrants develop ‘embodied’ cultural capital that makes them ‘competitive’ (see Sanders et al., 2002: 294–5) in the search for matching, rather than simply ‘better’, jobs.

Examining the experience of Romanians in London, the article thus raises two questions: (1) What role do bridging ties with natives play in migrants’ occupational attainment? (2) How are they mobilized in high- and low-skilled work environments? After introducing the study, I discuss the context of reception. I then examine Romanians’ efforts to access mainstream employment. I show how weak ties with natives may help migrants secure mainstream jobs, yet within lower-skilled sectors where migrants constitute a ‘valuable’ workforce, in the context of labour shortages, minimal skill requirements, and migrants’ perceived ‘work ethic’. I then show that for commensurate occupations in high-skilled sectors, migrants mobilized strong ties with natives more effectively for distinct resources. Close and frequent interaction with natives over time enables migrants to query and acquire ‘embodied’ cultural capital valued in local professional environments. Two strategies of converting strong bridging ties into embodied competences emerged: first, making and mobilizing British friends for advice with job hunting and decoding local norms and standards, and second, intensive immersion in British-dominated professional environments to acquire, practise, and demonstrate skills deemed necessary for upward mobility.

The article thus contributes to growing efforts to refine our understanding of bridging social capital and examine it qualitatively, providing insight into its differentiated nature, role, and resources (Cederberg, 2012; Leonard and Onyx, 2003; Moroşanu, 2013; Ryan, 2011). Specifically, Romanian migrants’ ties with Britons (a form of ‘bridging’) challenge the broadly positive understanding of bridging ties with natives as ‘weak ties’ useful for ‘getting ahead’, showing their variable strength, usefulness, and resources. I use insights from Bourdieu’s capital theory and network research to compare ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ bridging ties with natives, showing some limitations of ‘weak’ bridging, and advantages of ‘strong’ bridging for accumulating specific resources, such as embodied cultural capital required for prestigious positions. This argument adds to critiques of the conflation of bridging with weak ties and to calls to consider ties’ resources. Furthermore, as Ryan (2011) emphasizes, how migrants access new networks remains insufficiently understood, and bridging in particular is examined mainly in quantitative studies. Therefore, the article also enhances our understanding of bridging ties by documenting migrants’ strategies to build and convert native ties into economic or ‘embodied’ cultural capital specific to the destination place. Empirically, the article adds to the scholarship on recent East Europeans in Britain, who often experience downward mobility, and whose strategies to expand their career opportunities are yet to be fully documented (but see Csedő, 2009).

Method

The analysis is based on a qualitative study of how Romanian migrants in London built and mobilized different social ties at destination and transnationally. Between 2008 and 2010, I conducted 40 in-depth interviews with migrants in high- and low-skilled occupations, recruited through a balanced number of ethnic and non-ethnically marked routes (for example, searches with Romanian names and ‘London’ on Facebook). Ethnic organizations, neighbourhoods or media constitute common and convenient entry points for sampling migrants. Whilst I selected half of the participants through such ‘ethnic’ pathways, I also sought participants via ‘non-ethnic’ routes, since they could mobilize different networks than those mainly including Romanians.

The sample included 20 men and 20 women. Most were young, averaging 28 years, and came from urban areas. They were also well educated, three quarters having higher education or studying at UK universities, and the rest secondary education. I purposefully selected participants working in an equal number of high- and low-skilled occupations, including in banking, education, corporate law, construction, cleaning, care, or catering services. Half of those working in lower-skilled jobs had higher education. Romanians’ restricted access to the labour market until 2014 partly contributed to many migrants’ entry into lower-skilled sectors upon arrival.

Challenges to Integration into Society

Romanian migration to the UK has grown in size particularly with Romania’s accession to the European Union (EU) in 2007. Since 2007, over 140,000 Romanians have registered in the UK, of whom more than half (53%) in the London region (DWP, 2013). Although enjoying the freedom of movement, Romanians (and Bulgarians) faced work restrictions until 2014, unlike the East European migrants from countries that joined the EU in 2004. Taken in a period of economic prosperity, the UK open-door policy towards the 2004 entrants was driven by economic concerns, given significant labour shortages particularly in low-skilled occupations (e.g. construction, hospitality) or other sectors such as health (McDowell, 2009: 20). Relatively young and skilled, these ‘new’ Europeans were welcomed by employers looking for a cheap but ‘motivated’ and ‘reliable’ workforce for jobs that did not appeal to local workers due to their poor pay and conditions, and long or unusual working hours (Anderson and Ruhs, 2012: 24; McDowell, 2009: 27).

Whilst economically motivated, the open-door policy implicitly privileged ‘white’ migrants (Fox, 2013: 1884), who, as subsequent measures to ‘manage migration’ showed, were expected to meet labour shortages, reducing the need for non-EU ‘low-skilled’ workers (Anderson, 2010: 302; Fox et al., 2012: 684; McDowell, 2009: 27–33). However, the arrival of considerably higher than expected numbers of East European migrants generated worries about further migration from Europe’s poorer states next to join the EU in 2007, Romania and Bulgaria (McDowell et al., 2009: 5).

Romanians benefited from certain advantages as European citizens, including the right to travel freely, study or become self-employed in other member states, yet their access to the UK labour market was highly restricted to specific routes, including work authorization requirements for skilled or high-skilled employment or quota-based schemes for low-skilled jobs in specific sectors (for details on all routes, see MAC, 2011: 17–21). Work restrictions were maintained until 2014, due to concerns about the state of the labour market post-recession (MAC, 2011) and against the backdrop of growing public anxiety towards immigration.

These restrictive immigration policies underscored differences amongst ‘white’ Europeans (Fox et al., 2012; McDowell, 2009), significantly shaping Romanians’ labour market position and status (Anderson, 2010; Anderson and Ruhs, 2012). They not only limited migrants’ access to commensurate occupations but also increased the risk of exploitation, already noted in the case of the 2004 entrants (Anderson, 2010). To circumvent restrictions, many Romanians took the self-employment route (MAC, 2011: 9), finding precarious jobs that implied fewer entitlements, insecurity, and greater dependence on employers (Anderson, 2010), for example, in the construction sector, characterized by lower labour market regulation (Anderson and Ruhs, 2012: 28).

Romanians’ vulnerable status has been complemented by repeated stigmatization in the tabloid press, which fuelled fears about a Romanian ‘invasion’ and associated them with crime, poverty, and benefit shopping (Fox et al., 2012; Light and Young, 2009). Whilst aware of their disadvantages, my participants did not usually present themselves as victims of discrimination in everyday life (see also Favell and Nebe, 2009: 212; Fox et al., 2014). As ‘white’ (and often educated) Europeans, some saw themselves as benefiting from a ‘better reception’ than other migrants (Fox, 2013). However, this did not necessarily ensure smooth social integration.

Like many other migrants, Romanians did not find it easy to build ties with London’s native-born population (on Polish migrants, see Ryan, 2011: 716). Migrants in both high- and low-skilled positions more often ‘bridged’ with other migrants rather than natives (Moroşanu, 2013), even when they lived, worked, or studied in diverse places. Nicoleta, a corporate lawyer, provides a typical example of the migrant–native divide:

You see the English at work, and relations are very good, but . . . from the viewpoint of social life, you have it less with the English. There are many expats like us . . . with whom it’s easier to get in touch.

However, whilst few Romanians had close native friends, most valued professional relationships with them, and tried to mobilize them for socio-economic advancement.

Accessing ‘Mainstream’ Employment

Accessing better-paid mainstream jobs is seen as ‘a first step towards economic integration’ (Ooka and Wellman, 2006: 199). Mainstream jobs bring better pay, security, benefits, promotion opportunities, and even better treatment (Nee et al., 1994; but see Luthra and Waldinger, 2010). Nevertheless, securing such jobs proved remarkably difficult. Aside from the legal barriers Romanians faced, migrants often lacked local cultural and social capital that could inspire confidence in local employers (Moroşanu, 2013: 2176). Their foreign-earned qualifications and experience were often unrecognized or devalued (Bauder, 2005; Erel, 2010). An exception was jobs requiring ‘Romanian’ capital (e.g. knowledge of Romanian and Romania), where migrants could valorize their skills. Otherwise, despite their education and skills, many experienced downward mobility, and consequently an ambiguous class status (Ryan, 2011). Radu provides a typical example of the difficult and demoralizing process of searching for a graphic designer job, despite his high – and highly sought – qualifications:

I kept sending CVs, I sent and sent and nothing, absolutely not one phone call, at least to ask me what I know, what software I know, nothing, nothing. And I applied for at least fifty jobs and then, seeing that I can’t get anything, I ended up going to pubs. I’m not saying it’s not decent work or whatever, but it wasn’t my target . . . I said, ‘fine, I’m going to make this compromise’ . . . And the same, no success. I dropped CVs in all the pubs in central London . . . and I must say I speak English pretty well . . .

Accessing even elementary occupations in a British company depended on local references, which many lacked upon arrival. ‘. . . Without references, you’re nothing. You need at least one reference, one phone number, from someone who knows you for some time and can inspire trust’, Florin, who worked in delivery, underlined.

With their skills unrecognized, some sought to acquire UK credentials as a route to securing matching occupations at destination (see also Csedő, 2008: 812; Liversage, 2009: 209). Whilst this form of institutionalized cultural capital (in Bourdieu’s terminology) may improve career opportunities (Favell and Nebe, 2009: 216), it is not automatically convertible into economic returns. Bianca, a final-year student at a prestigious university, worried about finding employment after graduation since ‘it’s essentially a vote of confidence . . . when you don’t have experience’. As Bourdieu noted, official qualifications, although technically independent of the individual, do not alone guarantee access to prestigious positions, having ‘variable values’, depending on other assets individuals possess and the markets in which they are used (1973: 97–8).

Furthermore, acquiring local knowledge is time-consuming (Bourdieu, 1986). A one-year postgraduate degree provides limited exposure to, and time to accumulate, the embodied skills and knowledge necessary for more prestigious occupations. Migrants with a Master’s degree, even when awarded by prestigious local institutions, struggled to obtain a matching job afterwards. In a competitive labour market, ‘not having the UK experience, not being from the UK, and having only an MBA as local experience’ put Ioana ‘towards the bottom of priorities’ when she applied for jobs. Similarly, Otilia who obtained a Master’s degree from a prestigious university spent years searching for a matching position, and still worked in a professional job that did not fully reflect her aspirations or qualifications.

In this context, building ties with Britons became a strategic way of developing and valorizing personal competences which would otherwise remain unrecognized and unused (Erel, 2010). Yet bridging ties operated differently in high- and low-skilled milieus, showing the importance of tie strength for gaining particular resources.

Weak Bridging Ties with Natives

Bridging ties with natives are typically seen as ‘weak ties’ paving the way to ‘good’ or ‘better’ jobs. However, this uniform, positive view obscures the heterogeneity of native ties and resources, and the employment opportunities they may widen. Whilst native ties can include higher-status contacts that may facilitate ‘social leverage’ (Briggs, 1998), given their local expertise, the extent to which and how they do so requires investigation.

As noted earlier, my participants had mostly ‘weak’ ties with natives. Formed in workplaces or educational institutions, these involved limited intimacy or frequency of interaction (Granovetter, 1973: 1361). The jobs migrants secured with their help were often marginally ‘better’, remaining within lower-skilled sectors, such as construction, domestic work, hospitality, and entailing various disadvantages.

Sorin provides a typical example of such partial progress (see also Moroşanu, 2013: 2175). Sorin came to London after finishing secondary school and working as a network administrator in an internet café in his hometown. He first found work as a daily labourer on a construction site, through hometown acquaintances. Remaining out of work shortly thereafter, Sorin found casual agricultural work which resulted in underpayment and dismissal. He then located another construction job through a Bulgarian migrant. At the new workplace, Sorin’s skills gradually gained the attention of a British team working nearby, whose manager offered him a job. After a series of precarious jobs obtained through hometown acquaintances or other migrants, Sorin secured a new job through ‘weak’ native contacts. This represented an improvement in terms of pay and security but remained well below his qualifications or aspirations.

Such examples of status improvement through weak native contacts (employers or higher-placed co-workers) abounded in my participants’ accounts. Nevertheless, the jobs secured in this way contained multiple disadvantages usually associated with bonding ties, and obscured in positive accounts of bridging. Migrant workers have long constituted a convenient source of labour for employers looking to fill vacancies in low-end sectors that natives avoid. Whilst requiring few skills, these jobs involve low pay, long, and unusual hours in difficult and sometimes demeaning employment, and limited opportunities for advancement, making them unattractive to native-born workers (Dench et al., 2006; MacKenzie and Forde, 2009). Ovidiu, who had a university degree from Romania, and worked in construction as self-employed, underlined the difficulty and thus limited competitiveness of his job:

It’s a less [desirable] job . . . for instance, we don’t have a lift and you have to climb five staircases lifting heavy stuff. It’s not very, very difficult, but I’m thinking they’re [Britons] not used to making this sacrifice . . . what for?

Furthermore, long and ‘flexible’ working hours were a commonplace. ‘You aren’t forced to work more than 48 hours [a week]’, Ovidiu further noted, ‘but if you don’t want to … “no problem, we find someone else”’, illustrating migrants’ limited powers to challenge their condition (Anderson, 2010).

Many migrants unsurprisingly accepted, and even appreciated such precarious and exploitative employment. The pay, although low for British standards, was much higher than migrants’ earnings in Romania or what Romanian employers in London often offered. This provided an incentive to show deference (see also Dench et al., 2006), as Ovidiu explained: ‘when you come from a small income to a goodish one, or a really good one for us, you’re happy, and you don’t waste your chance or get fussy’. Romanians’ restricted access to the labour market, negative experiences with, or warnings about, exploitative coethnic employers additionally encouraged them to seek and praise British bosses (on the Chinese in the US, see Nee at al., 1994: 857).

Furthermore, participants often noted how their perceived ‘work ethic’ earned them a better reputation compared to local peers. That ‘English people worked much less than Romanians’ was a recurrent claim. ‘It’s hard to tell an English person to deliver some materials from London to Oxford after 5 o’clock. He’d say “fuck off” and switch off his phone’, stressed one participant. Although Romanians were often stigmatized in the tabloid media, employers recognized and valued their skills and ‘work ethic’, in George’s view: ‘they [locals] do disregard us a little because we come from a poor country . . . but as workers they appreciate us . . . they know we are hard-working’ (Moroşanu and Fox, 2013: 451, 448). ‘I think a lot of people prefer to employ a Romanian, a Pole or others . . . than an English person’, George continued (on similarities with the case of Polish construction workers, see Datta and Brickell, 2009).

Local employers expressed similar views, praising migrants’ willingness to ‘work 24 hours a day seven days a week’ if asked (MacKenzie and Forde, 2009: 149–50; see also Dench et al., 2006: 32–3). As MacKenzie and Forde observe, this suggests an intimate connection between exploiting migrants’ vulnerable situation and the ‘rhetoric of the “good worker”’ attached to East Europeans who accepted pay and conditions unattractive to locals (2009: 150).

The ‘coincidence of interests’ between employees’ needs and employers’ demands (Anderson, 2007: 255) enabled migrants to secure jobs through weak ties with natives when these required few skills, compliance with difficult conditions and low earnings, and where migrants constituted a valued workforce (Moroşanu, 2013: 2176). Making oneself noted by a British employer or making British acquaintances may lead to more attractive jobs compared to migrants’ even more precarious employment in the ethnic or informal economy. Yet in the search for matching occupations in high-skilled sectors, marked by competitiveness and requiring local cultural capital, Romanians’ stronger bridging ties, where available, generated different resources and advantages.

Aiming Higher, ‘Cultural Brokers’, and the Limits of Weak Ties

Migrants’ limited local cultural capital was a widely felt disadvantage in the search for high-skilled positions (see also Favell, 2003). Obtaining UK credentials only partly compensated for this. The time spent on a degree did not always guarantee that migrants amassed sufficient cultural resources to access more prestigious occupations. Alongside institutionalized cultural capital, migrants also needed to demonstrate embodied skills to inspire confidence in prospective employers. Despite doing very well on her degree, Ada failed to obtain an internship, which made her wonder, ‘When they see my name on the CV, they [employers] are probably like, can I speak English well?’, hinting at the salience of embodied cultural capital, such as language proficiency.

A counter-example reinforcing this point is provided by Cătălina, a bank manager, who had a British husband and accumulated substantial institutionalized and embodied cultural capital over time. With a first-class undergraduate degree from a British university, a reputable postgraduate qualification, and continuous work experience during her studies, Cătălina already figured as ‘part of the system’ in her professional environment (Moroşanu and Fox, 2013: 449).

However, Cătălina’s case remained exceptional. Recent high-skilled migrants had remarkable difficulty in securing matching occupations, signalling important limitations of weak ties. Weak ties allow information to flow across different groups, yet this information may depend on embodied forms of cultural capital to bring the expected returns. Native contacts may provide job information and referrals but migrants need to get and keep those jobs. Cristina’s experience is perhaps telling. Cristina, an economist, worked as a rental assistant in London, as she could not get a qualified position, despite being shortlisted for various interviews. ‘Of course I failed’, Cristina recounted, ‘the same thing, the rest [of the candidates] were English . . . it’s not racism, but the rest were English, what can I get from this?’. Cristina interprets her failure through the lens of racialization. Whilst my research only captured migrants’ perceptions, various studies document different forms of discrimination or racialization experienced by East Europeans (Fox, 2013: 1871–2; Fox et al., 2014: 6–7). Cristina’s failure to secure high-skilled jobs could further indicate the role of embodied cultural capital, which surfaces at the interview stage, in competition with native candidates. This cannot be delivered or absorbed as quickly as job news flows across networks.

Given these perceived disadvantages, high-skilled migrants pursuing upward mobility mobilized stronger bridging ties with native Britons to acquire and validate local cultural capital. Native peers became ‘cultural brokers’ in implicit and explicit ways, making the process of cultural capital accumulation faster for newcomers. In various contexts, migrants are shown to become cultural ‘mediators’ for migrant or ethnic minority clients (Erel, 2010: 644, 648) or in transnational businesses involving their home countries (Waters, 2006). Here, we witness the reverse process, whereby migrants strategically sought to mobilize native contacts to navigate the unfamiliar British system and labour market. Two main strategies of mobilizing strong bridging ties emerged.

First, some sought direct advice from closer British friends and colleagues. Marius, who worked in a restaurant, socialized regularly with other British students working there part-time. When he applied for a Psychology degree, to escape low-skilled work, these bridging ties saved him the time-consuming searches and frustrations experienced by those unfamiliar with the British educational system. They not only explained to Marius which universities ranked ‘better’ and how the application process unfolded, but also shared samples of personal statements, an important part of the university application. Marius could thus get a glimpse, through these ‘cultural brokers’, into how natives managed their applications, the standards and expectations they responded to. This constituted a valuable advantage in the competition for a study programme which subsequently turned out to be British-dominated.

Participants like Marius converted already-formed social capital into cultural capital for upward mobility. Others deployed concerted efforts to build social capital for this purpose. For example, Dana, who was a consultant in Romania, believed that a postgraduate degree from a UK university would offer a springboard for establishing a similar business there. Yet the ‘re-education’ strategy (Liversage, 2009: 209) she pursued proved insufficient. Dana’s limited grasp of the local business codes and culture hindered her attempts to promote her business successfully in London (Moroşanu, 2013: 2176). To cope with this drawback, she invested in building stronger ties with natives who could share valuable advice:

In England . . . what helps is to know a lot of people and be socially integrated so to say, because they can tell you the way in which your future employers think. This is very hard when you try to sell, because practically, when you apply for a job, you sell yourself, right? And it’s very difficult to understand how that person wants you to be, how they interpret what you’re saying. Because, for example, what is enthusiasm for us and ‘yes, I can do this and that’ may sound like overestimation to them . . . I had one, two, three, four English people whom I declaredly used as cultural brokers, people who can tell me what on earth that is.

As in Marius’ case, the contacts Dana strategically used as ‘cultural brokers’ shared different resources than acquaintances who circulate job news across different groups. These ‘strong’ native ties, characterized by frequent interaction and intimacy, enabled migrants to regularly ask them to decode local expectations, norms, and behaviours. Building such ties required considerable time and effort to generate the trust and motivation needed to share this information (see Smith, 2005: 9, 17).

Apart from seeking advice from established friends and colleagues, a second strategy to convert social capital into cultural capital was through immersion and close interaction in professional environments, which enabled participants to acquire, practise, and demonstrate valuable skills (see also Kindler and Szulecka, 2013: 663). Neither her Romanian degree, nor work experience helped Mara, a journalist, find a matching occupation. After working as a nanny for several years, she decided to volunteer for a mainstream company. This enabled her to enter native professional networks and acquire, through regular exposure and intense interaction, communication and other ‘embodied’ skills that would make her competitive in the high-skilled labour market. For example, close interaction with native colleagues helped her improve her language competence (see also Ryan, 2011: 716). Mara confessed she felt like ‘the most stupid person on earth’ amongst British professionals. Their ‘office’ English was ‘terribly different from the informal English you hear every day’ and therefore ‘it was natural that access to such positions was much more difficult’. Mara thus made concerted efforts to engage with her colleagues and develop locally-valued competence. The professional ties she built were marked by close interaction, questioning common associations of strong ties with (non-work) friends and family (see also Wegener, 1991). Similar tactics were found amongst other East European migrants who strategically socialized with British co-workers to improve their English and get a glimpse into their way of life (Datta, 2009: 362). This attests to the different resources weak and strong bridging ties with natives convey.

The stronger ties that people like Dana or Marius developed with British peers seemed better suited for acquiring and querying cultural understandings that risked remaining opaque to non-natives. However, migrants required some initial cultural capital to access professional networks, including English skills or education (Ryan, 2011). Furthermore, converting strong ties into cultural capital, be it language fluency or knowledge of cultural norms and practices, required considerable time and energy (Bourdieu, 1986) to develop and sustain trusting relationships with natives who were well versed in these areas. Lastly, in certain cases, such as years of low-skilled employment and devaluation of their background, some migrants looked up to any ‘office’ jobs, rather than jobs to match their profile. In other words, they were short of cultural capital in another sense too: apart from cultural information, some lacked a sense of confidence and entitlement to commensurate positions at destination to make the necessary steps to secure them (see Reay, 2004: 75–7). Migrants’ own attitudes and skills importantly shaped career trajectories, and the usefulness of bridging ties depended on investment and commitment on both sides.

Conclusion

The examination of Romanians’ professional ties to natives contributes to efforts to refine our understanding of bridging social capital, its role and mobilization in the migration context (Leonard and Onyx, 2003; Moroşanu, 2013; Ryan, 2011). Focusing primarily on bonding ties, migration research has paid considerably less attention to bridging ties and associated them with weak ties beneficial for upward mobility, particularly when they involve natives. Romanians’ career trajectories in London challenge this broadly positive view of bridging ties. My argument adds to critiques of the conflation of bridging ties with weak ties and to calls to consider individuals’ resources and status (Cederberg, 2012; Leonard and Onyx, 2003; Lin, 1999; Ryan, 2011). Drawing on Bourdieu’s capital theory and network research, I examined both ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ ties with natives, emphasizing the importance of tie strength (Bian, 1997) for particular resources such as ‘embodied’ cultural capital specific to the host society and often indispensable for occupational advancement. This highlighted important limitations of weak native ties.

Many Romanians who came to London found themselves thrice poor: despite their qualifications, they frequently lacked local contacts, credentials, and knowledge of the host society and labour market more generally. Apart from work restrictions, their limited local cultural and social capital made entry into mainstream employment, and particularly matching high-skilled occupations, extremely difficult. Bridging with natives constituted one route to cope with these disadvantages. My analysis revealed both their usefulness and limitations in facilitating occupational advancement.

Whilst migrants often found better jobs via weak ties with Britons, these had limited impact on upward mobility, since they were often lower-skilled jobs well below migrants’ qualifications and career aspirations. Accessing them was easier due to their limited skill requirements, competitiveness, and the ‘coincidence of interests’ (Anderson, 2007) between migrants and local employers. Migrants’ motivation to work hard was ‘rewarded’ by employers ready to hire them for occupations that often implied difficult, if not exploitative conditions. Such disadvantages cast some doubt over the positive view of bridging compared to bonding ties (Moroşanu, 2013).

Seeking matching high-skilled occupations revealed further limitations of weak ties. These often required embodied cultural capital specific to the destination context (see also Erel, 2010: 648). For its accumulation and validation, migrants seemed to benefit more from strong ties with natives. Stronger ties involve more frequent or intimate interaction over time, generating higher trust and motivation to provide assistance (Lin, 1999), which becomes important in the transmission of cultural resources that may widen migrants’ career opportunities. Two main strategies to mobilize strong native contacts emerged: using British friends as ‘cultural brokers’, and immersion and intense interaction in British professional environments to acquire and demonstrate embodied cultural capital. Much research on bridging has been quantitative, and migrants’ strategies to access new networks more generally remain underexplored (Ryan, 2011). By documenting these strategies, the article also contributes to a better understanding of how migrants build and mobilize bridging ties, and the distinct resources generated by strong ties with natives, developed in professional environments.

Contrary to the common view of bridging ties as weak ties useful for ‘getting ahead’, Romanians’ ties with natives thus had varied strength, resources, and not least limitations. Differences became more evident when migrants aspired to commensurate high-skilled occupations, which required a more complex set of resources, whose accumulation was a slow, laborious process (Bourdieu, 1986), unlike the flow of information passed by weak connections. Romanians’ experiences suggest a more complex picture of native ties, which do not automatically enable occupational mobility, as sometimes presumed.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Jon Fox, Adrian Favell, Viv Jackson, Paul Statham, and the Sociology reviewers for their valuable feedback on previous versions of this article. I also thank all participants in the study whose names have been changed for anonymity purposes.

Funding

Funding from the University of Bristol and the Bristol Alumni Foundation is gratefully acknowledged.

Laura Moroşanu is Lecturer in Sociology in the School of Law, Politics, and Sociology at the University of Sussex. Her research interests include migration, ethnicity, migrant networks, and transnationalism.

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