Centre for Research on Families and Relationships

Personal networks of young adults in Switzerland: Social capital, educational and work aspirations

This large project will survey a national cohort of young men, mostly aged 19, in 2020-21 who will participate in a compulsory information session on the Swiss military service. An additional sample of young women living in Switzerland will be interviewed. In total, n=50,000 participants will be surveyed. The project aims to better understand the role of young people’s personal relationships and personal networks on their educational and work aspirations.

My main interests are to analyse (1) the relationships between three dimensions of exclusion: spatial, social and professional exclusion through the experience of unemployment/unstable educational and work history; and (2) the role of interpersonal relationships on aspirations using a multi-level design at the tie, network and regional levels.

(2017-2023) (Gil Viry with Professor Eric Widmer, University of Geneva), funded by the Swiss government (Swiss Federal Department of Defence, Civil Protection and Sport – DDPS) via the Swiss Federal Surveys of Adolescents Ch-x, (£1.2m, https://chx.ch/fr).