Parenthood status of siblings, half-siblings and cousins and entry into parenthood. A horizontal kinship network approach
2024-06-27 08:30 - 10:10 (Europe/Amsterdam)
On June 27, Vera de Bel, Alyona Artamonova, Takayuki Hiraoka, Mirkka Danielsbacka, Antti Tanskanen, Marijtje van Duijn will present their work on “Parenthood status of siblings, half-siblings and cousins and entry into parenthood. A horizontal kinship network approach” at Sunbelt 2024, which will take place in at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh.

Abstract

Horizontal kinship ties last a lifetime, and life-course transitions of horizontal kin are known to be interconnected. Prior research, with a focus on siblings, has demonstrated their influence on various life events, including home leaving (Her, Vergauwen, & Mortelmans, 2022), marriage and divorce behavior (Buyukkececi & Leopold, 2021), and fertility (Buyukkececi & Leopold, 2021; Lyngstad & Prskawetz, 2010). However, siblings are just one example of individuals’ horizontal kin, and the impact extends to half-siblings and cousins, shaping both individual trajectories and those of their relatives. Moreover, the influence of horizontal kin may vary based on factors such as the degree of relatedness (full siblings, half-siblings, or cousins), kin’s gender ((half-)brothers, (half-)sisters, male or female cousins), and lineage (paternal or maternal side of the family). This study seeks to analyze the complete horizontal kinship network to understand how individuals’ entry into parenthood is associated with the parenthood status of their horizontal kin. More specifically, the study examines whether 1) close kin compared to more distant kin, 2) female compared to male kin, and 3) maternal compared to paternal kin have a stronger influence on an individual’s entry into parenthood. Utilizing unique registry data that documents the kinship networks of the entire Dutch (van der Laan, de Jonge, Das, Te Riele, & Emery, 2022) and Finnish population, the study will employ a multi-level model considering the nested structure and dependence of relationships (Snijders & Bosker, 2012; van Duijn, 2013). First results and a comparison between the Dutch and Finnish contexts will be presented.

Contacts in contexts: A population-scale social network approach to the study of close intergroup social ties
2024-06-28 17:20 - 19:00
On June 28, Nicolás Soler, PhD Candidate (Erasmus University Rotterdam) and POPNET Fellow, will give a lecture about a new approach that investigates social context in intergroup social ties across multiple contexts.

Abstract

Close intergroup social ties provide fertile ground to cultivate mutual trust and tolerance. Social context shapes the opportunities to form such ties, but what is exactly the relationship between opportunities and realised intergroup social ties? When assessing the importance of social context, previous quantitative research has faced a trade-off between generalisability and granularity in data collection. The challenge is to study the relevance of social context in intergroup social ties across multiple contexts, in detail, and at a large scale. To do so, we map social context using newly available population-scale social network data from the Netherlands. We link them to survey data on close intergroup social ties. We showcase our novel approach by investigating which contexts sustain close social ties between immigrants and natives, i.e. individuals born and residing in the Netherlands. Our results confirm that natives who have more opportunities to interact with immigrants are more likely to have a close intergroup social tie with them. We find that this effect is stronger when the opportunities for intergroup interaction arise in private rather than public contexts. We also find that natives with at least one immigrant parent are important brokers in this type of intergroup social ties.

Co-authored with Eelke and Yuliia. Presented as poster presentation.

Increasing mobility is linked to decreasing cohesion of personal networks overthe lifecourse of an entire population
2024-10-18 10:00 - 19:00
On October 18, Eszter Bokányi will present her work on “Increasing mobility is linked to decreasing cohesion of personal networks over the lifecourse of an entire population” at the Dutch NetSci Symposium, which will take place at Eindhoven University of Technology.

Abstract

Growing accessibility between places and a changing society foster higher human mobility both daily and long-term, which results in an increased social connectivity between faraway places. Thus, geographic displacement creates new connections and at the same time rearranges the existing spatial structure of social networks. Both of these mechanisms are little understood in the existing literature of social network formation processes. Moreover, up until now, it has also been a challenge to systematically follow the temporal evolution of an entire population’s social network structure.

In this work, we use a unique longitudinal population-scale network dataset sourced from Statistics Netherlands. This network contains family, work, school, household, and next-door neighbor connections derived from administrative registers, that together constitute a multilayer social opportunity structure for all residents of the Netherlands between 2009 and 2022. We follow the patterns of individuals’ network surroundings over time, and measure size, closure, and geographical dispersion of ego networks. Size is captured by degree, closure by excess closure [1], which is based on the node clustering coefficient. Geographical dispersion is given by the average distance from network neighbors, and the average share of network neighbors in the same municipality or the same next-door neighborhood as the ego.

The three findings presented in this work are that while the average size of ego networks stays stable over the observed period, average closure drops by as much as 10%, and the average distance from network neighbors grows, while the average share of network neighbors in the same geographic area decreases. We use multivariate regressions to show that the observed decrease in the closure is significantly linked to the growing geographic dispersion, thus, the increasing daily and long-term mobility of people. We control for demographic and socio-economic background including the age, migrant generation, income, and whether people attend school and have employment. The regressions confirm that beyond degree and demographics, variables that capture people’s mobility are linked to the opening up of individual networks.

This work is the first of its kind that aims to map the temporal network of an entire population structure comprehensively. As such, it offers a starting point for a wide variety of impactful network science research at the level of a complete population.

[1] Bokányi, E., Heemskerk, E. M., & Takes, F. W. (2023). The anatomy of a population-scale social network. Scientific Reports, 13(1), 9209.

The Closing Window? Network Determinants of Economic Prosperity in a Longitudinal Population-scale Social Network
2024-10-18 10:00 - 19:00
On October 18, Yuliia Kazmina will present her work on “The Closing Window? Network Determinants of Economic Prosperity in a Longitudinal Population-scale Social Network” at the Dutch NetSci Symposium, which will take place at Eindhoven University of Technology.

Abstract

This work presents a comprehensive longitudinal exploration of trends of socio- economic segregation and inequalities across a span of a recent decade, aiming to reveal their impact on the prospects for upward mobility.

Utilizing population-scale social network register data on all residents of the Netherlands, the research delves into the shifting patterns of income and wealth distributions, offering an in-depth overview of their longitudinal trends and interplay. We juxtapose the evolving dynamics of income and wealth accumulation against a specific aspect of social network structure: segregation patterns along the socio-economic status dimension. To unravel the drivers behind observed macro-trends of segregation and inequality, we distinguish various relevant subgroups within the population as defined by their socio-economic background and social network position. Through comparative analysis across diverse socio-economic strata, we identify the key social network determinants contributing to individuals’ economic prosperity and explore how these influences vary across the spectrum of income and wealth distribution.

The study leverages register data from the Netherlands covering the country’s whole population and providing information on one’s socio-economic standing as well as comprehensive mapping of social networks. The relational aspect of register data sheds light on formal links such as kinship, neighbors, classmates, colleagues, and household members. Methodologically, the study employs a mix of supervised and unsupervised machine learning to analyze longitudinal patterns of segregation and economic inequalities. We first employ clustering analysis to define common trajectories of economic development expressed through a combination of income change as well as accumulation of wealth and debt. We then relate these trajectories to the socioeconomic network composition of these individuals with a particular focus on income and wealth assortativity as well as average income and wealth distance to alters while controlling for the size of the social network.

In contrast to recent work on social capital by Chetty et al., we contend that the key factor for improving economic performance among the lower end of the prosperity distribution isn’t merely low segregation and high economic connectedness. Rather, it lies in having a significant proportion of more affluent contacts, while ensuring that the prosperity gap is within an optimal range. While having somewhat wealthier contacts can be advantageous, once the prosperity gap becomes too wide, its predictive power may diminish or even have a negative impact. Therefore, we anticipate a concave relationship between the positive prosperity gap with alters and enhanced economic performance,especially for those at the lower end of the prosperity distribution.

Our contribution lies not only in comprehensively mapping dynamics of segregation vs economic inequalities on the country level but also in providing micro-analysis of the drivers that contribute to the observed macro outcomes. This interdisciplinary approach enables a comprehensive perspective on how individual pathways to economic successare embedded within a broader structural framework.

References1. Chetty, R., Jackson, M.O., Kuchler, T. et al. Social capital I: measurement and associationswith economic mobility. Nature 608, 108–121 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04996-42. Chetty, R., Jackson, M.O., Kuchler, T. et al. Social capital II: determinants of economicconnectedness. Nature 608, 122–134 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04997-3

POPNET Connects with Jolien Cremers
2024-10-21 14:00 - 15:00
Please register to attend the seminar online via the button. You will receive a link to the virtual meeting via email.

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Unveiling the Social Fabric: A Temporal, Nation-Scale Social Network and its Characteristics

Social networks shape individuals’ lives, influencing everything from career paths to health. Statistics Denmark and Copenhagen Centre for Social Data Science developed a registry-based, multi-layer and temporal network of the entire Danish population in the years 2008-2021 (roughly 7.2 mill. individuals). Our network maps the relationships formed through family, households, neighborhoods, colleagues and classmates. Analysis of the network reveals how past connections reappear later in other layers, that the number of relationships aggregated over time reflects the position in the income distribution, and that we can recover canonical shortest path length distributions when appropriately weighting connections.

About Jolien Cremers

Jolien Cremers is Senior Advisor at the Data Science Lab at Statistics Denmark. She is responsible for maintaining and developing the Danish Nation-Scale Social Network data as well as cooperating with outside researchers on projects that use this data. She obtained her Ph.D. in applied statistics for social science from Utrecht University in 2019. Her previous research was on Bayesian methodology for circular statistics as well as applied statistics for longitudinal models of health and other types of registry data.

POPNET Connects with Ana Macanovic (Hybrid)
2024-12-09 11:00 - 12:00
Please register to attend the seminar online via the button. You will receive a link to the virtual meeting via email.

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Limits to Gender Equity in Science Communication (Hybrid)

The public continuously seeks scientific expertise on pressing issues and the scientists are becoming increasingly conscious of the importance of engaging with the public through different media outlets. Understanding and addressing contemporary societal challenges crucially depends on hearing diverse perspectives of a wide variety of scientists. Yet, past research has shown that time in the media spotlight is unequally distributed between researchers belonging to different social groups.

Here we focus on the representation of men and women scientists in the media. To better understand the complex landscape of gender differences in media representation, we present a newly curated and fine-grained dataset, the Dutch Professors in Media database (DPM). DPM contains information on scientific careers, media attention across several media channels, and co-authorship networks of almost 7 thousand full professors in the Netherlands. We start by evaluating gender inequality in professors’ media presence controlling for indicators of their own scientific prominence, as well as the prominence of the collaborators in their scientific network.

We find that women receive significantly less attention than men in printed media, but not in online news and on the social media across most scientific fields. Furthermore, we evaluate the extent to which the features of one’s collaboration networks, as well as the processes of cumulative advantage, are associated with (gender differences in) professors’ consecutive media presence.

About Ana Macanovic

Ana Macanovic is a Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence. Her interests include economic sociology, study of inequalities, and understanding of trust and cooperation in diverse groups. Ana is interested in how structural inequalities arise in societies and how they can be addressed. She has recently worked on gender representation of Dutch professors in newspapers and online media with Bas Hofstra. Currently, Ana is working on several projects examining the accumulation of inequalities and innovation in academia, as well as understanding the predictability of life outcomes of different social groups.

If you wish to attend this event on-site at IAS, please send an email to j.murli@uva.nl.
