What Should I Aspire To? Peer Effects in Adolescents’ Friendship Networks

2022/04/22 by Ben D’Exelle, Rik Habraken, Arjan Verschoor
Social Sciences · #Social Capital and Networks #School Choice and Performance #Parental Involvement in Education

paper · doi:10.1086/720543

Abstract

In sub-Saharan Africa, economic aspirations often conflict with aspirations to follow traditional social obligations. We test whether adolescents are influenced by friends when deciding which to prioritize. To do so, we elicit the preferences and perceived competition between economic and social aspirations of 553 Ugandan students, as well as their friendship ties. Using characteristics of nonoverlapping friends as instrumental variables, we identify strong peer effects. They are stronger with more interaction among friends, or when the information shared is more relevant or more important relative to other signals. We find no peer effect on the perceived competition between aspirations.

Citations

• Understanding Mechanisms Underlying Peer Effects: Evidence From a Field Experiment on Financial Decisions
• Poverty and Aspirations Failure

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