What is the network hypothesis and how does it help explain the high level of unemployment found in many inner-city areas?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answer: Networks of working family or friends provide unskilled urbanites seeking entry-level positions with information about jobs, sponsorship for jobs, and role models for work. Hiring is referential, not residential. Many urban black communities, after a generation or two outside the mainstream of labor opportunity, may lack these crucial links because the social networks conducive to upward mobility have deteriorated. The theory that it is the lack of these networks that causes unemployment may be called the network hypothesis. Scholars investigating this hypothesis note that significant numbers of inner-city jobs, even those in manufacturing, have often been captured by groups whose residences are distant, even though local residents cannot get work.