Diversity in Immigrant Bonding and Bridging Networks Across Residential Mobility Pathways

Abstract

This study examines the size and diversity of immigrant bonding and bridging networks across residential mobility pathways. Prior research has relied heavily on size-based or categorical measures of coethnic and interethnic ties, revealing little about the breadth of institutional and occupational domains to which networks connect immigrants. Network diversity, measured through a position generator, captures this structural dimension, and residential mobility provides a complementary lens by situating network formation within the sociospatial environments immigrants encounter over time. Using original survey data from 1,415 Chinese immigrants in Japan, I analyze network size and occupational diversity across four residential mobility patterns that precede network measurement. Socioeconomic resources are consistently associated with larger and more diverse bonding and bridging networks. Residential trajectories further differentiate network structure: early or sustained residence in ethnic neighborhoods corresponds with larger coethnic networks, while movers into ethnic neighborhoods have the largest and most occupationally diverse coethnic networks and comparatively high interethnic diversity. These findings show that immigrant incorporation is reflected not only in the volume of coethnic and interethnic ties, but also in their structural heterogeneity and in the residential pathways through which they are assembled.