A recent study indicates that kids from low-income families face challenges in forming friendships and integrating socially at school. Researchers from the University of Zurich and the University of Stockholm conducted the study using data from over 200 school classes in Sweden.

Friendships during school years play a crucial role in a teenager’s development, influencing their social skills in the future. Adolescents who feel well-connected in their school classes tend to have better mental health and higher academic achievements, which can impact their career paths later on.

Social networks

The study aimed to understand if a parent’s income affects social relationships within the classroom. The researchers analyzed data from surveys and administrative databases, focusing on 4,787 Swedish teenagers aged 14 and 15 in 235 school classes, along with studying their friendship networks.

The results suggest that adolescents from low-income families experience lower social integration compared to their peers from higher-income families, regardless of the school’s overall socioeconomic context.

“We found that pupils from poorer households are less likely to be chosen as friends and therefore have fewer friendships than those from higher-income households,” the researchers explain.

Interestingly, this still appeared to be the case in classes where there was a large proportion of students from poorer backgrounds.

“We were surprised that even within low-income groups, parental income matters,” the authors continue. “This could imply that social status with corresponding attributes such as fashionable clothes or participation in popular leisure activities is important when forming friendships.”

The friendship gap

One reason for the “friendship gap” could be that kids from less wealthy families have less money for extracurricular activities, making it harder for them to make friends outside of school. Another possibility is that they face more stress from tough family situations or poverty, affecting how they behave and making them less appealing as friends.

The study also looked into whether the friendship gap would go away if income didn’t affect making friends at school. However, the researchers found that only about a third of the friendship gap could be explained by differences in parental income.

The researchers think other factors in social networks make existing differences in integration worse, like popularity. If you already have a lot of friends, it’s easier to make new ones because people tend to become friends with the friends of their friends. But if kids from lower-income families start with fewer friends, it’s harder for them to make new ones.

This can create a cycle where differences in the number of friendships become more noticeable, putting kids from low-income families at a disadvantage when they move on to higher education or careers. To break this cycle, schools could create more opportunities for kids to make new friends.

“For example, teachers could take the socio-economic mix into account when planning seating arrangements and groups for project work, or schools could offer mixed-class afternoon activities and sports,” the authors conclude.