Hi everyone!

My thesis is regarding unemployment in East Asia among youth and I want to use social capital theory as my theoretical framework. I was wondering if everyone thinks social capital theory is strong enough of a theory to use as a main theoretical framework. I know most of my classmates are applying more classical theories such as social constructivism and rational choice theory (I was originally going to use this). I am using survey data about social networks in East Asia and looking at correlations between these networks and employment status. So me it seems the best framework would be social capital theory.

What does everyone think?

Thanks in advance for the help!!!! My advisor is MIA these days.

It does sound suitable in the context of your research. I would though spend some time looking slightly outside of Bourdieu's notion of social capital as scholars have developed social capital further to foster different definitions, e.g. Putnam (2000), bridging and bonding social capital.

Thanks!!! I will look at this paper. Very helpful :)

You are welcome. Just to help you with your search, Putnam (2000) is a book titled 'Bowling alone'. Finding some general articles on social capital will be helpful for you too as there are a few additional definitions that are typically explored and considered together in the research literature.