Social Capital and Job Quality among Female Industrial Workers: Resource Mobilization, Worker Agency, and the Role of Trade Unions

Abstract

Industrial employment has expanded economic opportunities for women in developing economies, yet access to employment does not necessarily translate into better job quality. This study examines how social capital shapes the job quality of female workers in industrial zones, with particular attention to the mechanisms through which social relationships are converted into employment-related resources and capabilities. Drawing on secondary data, academic studies, institutional reports, and documented trade union practices, the study adopts a qualitative, document-based approach and distinguishes among bonding, bridging, and linking social capital. The findings indicate that these forms perform distinct but complementary functions. Bonding social capital primarily provides emotional, material, and everyday support that strengthens workers’ resilience; bridging social capital broadens access to information, learning, training, and occupational opportunities; and linking social capital connects workers to institutional resources, representation, rights, and mechanisms of worker voice. Trade unions emerge as particularly important institutional brokers of linking social capital by facilitating access to information, services, representation, and social dialogue. However, social capital is not uniformly beneficial: closed networks, reciprocal obligations, power asymmetries, and gender norms may constrain workers’ capacity to mobilize network resources. The study proposes an analytical pathway in which social capital influences job quality through access to and mobilization of resources and the strengthening of worker agency. It concludes that improving women’s job quality requires not merely stronger social connections but more diverse and institutionally connected networks that enable workers to convert social resources into economic security, skills, voice, and occupational opportunities.