Social Capital or Social Tax? Rethinking the Role of Immigrants' Co-Ethnic Social Ties

The migration literature largely suggests that immigrant groups tend to form close-knit cohesive communities that offer crucial support for their members as they make their way in their host countries, especially in the labor market. Based on an exploratory study of how Polish migrants integrate into the labor market in Berlin, Germany, this paper challenges the prevailing conceptualization of migrants’ co-ethnic social ties as benevolent sources of support. Interviews with 44 Polish migrants and key informants revealed that there are high levels of distrust - even hostility - among Polish migrants in Berlin. They have not formed a cohesive immigrant community in the city and often experience co-ethnic social ties as a “social tax”, rather than sources of genuine support. This paper details how more established Polish migrants commonly take advantage of the power asymmetries that exist between them and typically more recent Polish migrants, and act as brokers in the labor and housing market. They play a key role in channeling more vulnerable Polish migrants into precarious, often irregular, and sometimes exploitive employment arrangements in Berlin. In a broader sense, this paper illuminates how the host society’s regulatory context shapes immigrants’ opportunities and their behavior as an ethnic group. Thus, the paper’s insights are also highly relevant for addressing the challenge of integrating rapidly increasing numbers of refugees from Syria and other Middle Eastern countries in Western European communities.