European Sociological Review Advance Access originally published online on May 16, 2007
European Sociological Review 2007 23(4):471-485; doi:10.1093/esr/jcm016
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The Economic Side of Social Relations: Household Poverty, Adolescents’ Own Resources and Peer Relations
Elin Olsson, Swedish Institute for Social Research (SOFI), Stockholm University, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden.
Correspondence: Email: elin.olsson{at}sofi.su.se
While sociological theory suggests that economic resources, through the social side of consumption, are important to social relations, few studies have investigated this relation empirically. The present article examines the relationship between adolescents’ (aged 10–18 years) economic resources and social relations with peers using interview data from the Swedish Level of Living Survey 2000 and from Statistics Sweden's Living Conditions Survey 2001–2003 (n = 5,388). Several indicators of economic resources and social relations reported by adolescents and their parents, as well as register data on household income, are used. The analyses show that economic resources, both in terms of household economy and adolescents’ own resources, are positively associated with social relations. Child poverty and relative deprivation appear to have sizeable effects on some dimensions of social relations. These results are robust for a number of controls of household characteristics and are valid across age groups and for both sexes. The analyses also suggest that the intra-household distribution of resources matters for adolescents’ social relations.
Manuscript received: June 1, 2006.