Long ties, disruptive life events, and economic prosperity

Abstract

Social networks shape and reflect economic life. Prior studies have identified long ties, which connect people who lack mutual contacts, as a correlate of individuals’ success within firms and places’ economic prosperity. However, we lack population-scale evidence of the individual-level link between long ties and economic prosperity, and why some people have more long ties remains obscure. Here, using a social network constructed from interactions on Facebook, we establish a robust association between long ties and economic outcomes and study disruptive life events hypothesized to cause formation of long ties. Consistent with prior aggregated results, administrative units with a higher fraction of long ties tend to have higher-income and economic mobility. Individuals with more long ties live in higher-income places and have higher values of proxies for economic prosperity (e.g., using more Internet-connected devices and making more donations). Furthermore, having stronger long ties (i.e., with higher intensity of interaction) is associated with better outcomes, consistent with an advantage from the structural diversity constituted by long ties, rather than them being weak ties per se. We then study the role of disruptive life events in the formation of long ties. Individuals who have migrated between US states, have transferred between high schools, or have attended college out-of-state have a higher fraction of long ties among their contacts many years after the event. Overall, these results suggest that long ties are robustly associated with economic prosperity and highlight roles for important life experiences in developing and maintaining long ties.