Social networks and demographic outcomes

It is evident that rapid global changes including urbanization, migration, increasing educational opportunities and technological advancement have impact on the institution of marriage all over the world and India is not exception to these changes. However, traditional values and norms have still playing significant influence on age at marriage, process of mate selection, dowry, status of bride in family etc. Youth in India study, a sub nationally representative survey, provide us an opportunity to explore these dimensions minutely. Results reveal that arrange marriage prevails irrespective of states, however some independency in choice of groom or bride is observed in Tamil Nadu. Largely, youth in northern states are not aware about their would-be spouse before marriage, which is not the case for southern states. Men are excited about marriage while for female; marriage is a reason to worry. The chances of knowing spouse before marriage is significantly more, if the age at marriage is above the legal age. Better economic condition and mother’s education, education of married women appeared as significant and positive determinants on this. Men and women living in non-nuclear family and in rural areas are less likely to interact with their spouse before marriage

The relationship between social network and health status is examined by utilizing public use data from the 2008 General Social Survey on social networks. The study examines the effect of various features of individual networks on health status. We use a resilience measure of health status which indicates the change of health status in five years (much worse to much better). A person’s network is operationalized by five items: size and strength of the network of relatives, size and strength of the friendship network, and the occupational composition of network. We observe associations between these network indicators and the respondent’s sense of their changed level of health compared to five years ago. In particular, the strength of the network of relatives reduces the magnitude of negative relationship between stress and the resilience measure. This study also finds that males are benefiting more from relative strength in gaining better health compared to females. This study shows us the five components of individual network have quite different functions and roles in our life. Further research is needed on the role of public and professional networks on social life and on dealing with the health consequences of stress.

Community detection in scientific networks has become an increasingly common strategy for evaluating how readily a scientific community is marked by division into uniquely identifiable segments (or communities). Demography is a field that draws from many academic disciplines and has internal explicit foci on different subjects, each of which could generate substantial segmentation of the field as a whole. We have little evidence of how integrative across those domains Demography is, or whether each comprises unique non-overlapping scientific communities. This paper uses a database of all papers published in four major general demography journals over several decades to examine the patterns of community segmentation within the field, to examine what are the primary drivers of the observed levels of network segmentation, and what researchers and/or research subjects serve as intermediaries between those identified communities.

This study conducts a multilevel analysis to examine the association between community-level income inequality, social capital and health status among the urban elderly in Japan. An urban subsample of the Japan Gerontological Evaluation Study (JAGES) - a countywide social epidemiological survey of community-dwelling and functionally-independent individuals aged 65 and over - is used for the analysis (n=7,527). The community-level social capital is measured by the proportion of the respondents who “generally trust others in the community”. The ecological-level analysis finds significant community-level variations in income inequality and the social capital indicator, and they are correlated with the residents’ self-rated health. The results of the multilevel analysis confirm that, controlling for individual-level demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, a greater extent of income inequality increases the likelihood of reporting poor health. It is further observed that living in a community with a higher level of social capital attenuates the association between income inequality and health status. These results imply the importance of facilitating social connectedness and enhancing social cohesion in dealing with elderly health issues under the combination of population ageing and growing socioeconomic inequality.

On the basis of the unique setting in Seoul, Korea where middle school graduates are randomly assigned into high schools within school districts and also where the assignment of high school students into homeroom classes is likely to be random, we address whether peers matter for adolescents’ risky behaviors (drinking and smoking). These procedures of student assignment provide an exceptional opportunity to estimate the effects of peer groups, which are not contaminated by an adolescent’s selection of peer groups. Using the sample of Seoul high school students from a nationally representative survey of Korean high school students in 10th – 12th grades conducted every year since 2005 to 2011, we model an adolescent’s initiation of drinking or smoking in time t conditional on no initiation though through t-1, by the average percentage of her (his) current classmates who undertook the risky behavior p years earlier (i.e., a lagged group variable), after taking into account a variety of individual-level variables. Our school-fixed effect models, furthermore, control for unobserved school environments that may simultaneously affect the adolescent and her (his) classmates. Our study significantly improves estimates of the effects of peer groups on adolescents’ risky behaviors.

Demographic change is a product of a complex web of social interactions. These interactions inform, motivate and facilitate demographic events such as family formation, childbearing and migration, and the social fabric on which these interactions take place has the form of a network defining links between individuals. Agent-based simulation modelling can formalise this link between network interactions and demographic outcomes and furthermore allows the systematic testing of the plausibility of hypotheses about how the two are linked. This paper describes results from a simulation model of interaction over a dynamic social network, in which agents have incomplete, evolving and falsifiable preferences as to potential partners.

While most European countries have experienced very low fertility for a long period, the TFR in Norway has increased since the mid-1980s and is now among the highest in Europe. Paradoxically, during the same period childlessness among men has also grown. More men live without children and the “child environment” is increasingly gendered. This paper concentrates on young people’s “child environment” through a gender perspective. The paper analyses semi-structured interviews of 90 Norwegian women and men in their prime reproductive ages (25-40 years), with and without children, from upper middle and working classes during 2010. The network analysis focuses on the role of friends in particular, emphasising the concepts of social influence and social learning (Mische, 2011; Rossier and Bernardi, 2009). The analysis suggests that few men discuss childbearing with in their friendship networks. To childless men with partners her networks seem to have an important social influence also on men’s childbearing. While discussions among men are few, social learning is transmitted through observing changes in the life of male friends with children.

Fertility has declined across several Indian states of late (1970s), with varying historical points of onset and pace of decline. Women in Uttar Pradesh still bear four children due to interplay of socioeconomic, demographic and cultural factors. Rarely role of diffusion was examined in precipitating fertility change in the India. To investigate the role of women’s social network towards influencing actual fertility and fertility preferences in rural Uttar Pradesh, India. The study is based on egocentric social network data from 567 women 18-35 years. Discussions on matters of child bearing (MoCB) with women social network partners (SNP) had significant negative association with CEB by woman. Accounting for interaction between MoCB and density of SNP, there appears positive association of discussion of MoCB and increasing density of SNP with children ever born in rural UP. This suggests operation of social influence to sustain high fertility in the study area.

Usage of internet is largely limited to passive reception of available content until the advent of large social networking websites, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc. Through these websites online users create contents and build relationships with each other, amplifying users' dependence on and power of online network. This paper uses Kozinets' model of internet user segmentation to categorize users into 4 groups; collector, onlookers, VIP users, and joiners. Two differentiating factors, i.e. contributions and social capital are introduced. Unlike most studies on online networking behaviors, this study uses real behavioral data (as opposed to surveyed, subjective data) of Hao Kan Pu, a Chinese-based social network website. It is found that idle members, those having low contributions and low social capital dominate the network, accounted for 98.47% of the samples. Active members, those having high contributions and connections, are accounted only 0.21%. High-contribution members with low connections (collectors), and low-contribution members with high connections, are accounted for 0.64% and 0.67%, respectively. This structural data of online network's behavior is crucial for online social network analysis, e-marketers, as well as community development.

Politics, socio-economic, cultural and health related issues that serve as harbinger of social relationship among people in the society could not really be explained without looking at the religious belief of the people which formed out of social precept. This study is based on the baseline data from a longitudinal couple study in a peri-urban community, Ipetumodu, in Osun State, Nigeria collected between April and May, 2010. A total of 787 couples were sampled in this baseline and the cohort will be followed up for 2-3 years using an identical survey instrument and methodology in all the study sites. Our finding shows that religion play major role in couple’s decision for more children and more of the Muslim couples are not sure of their future fertility intentions. But as it concerns the use of contraceptive, more of the Christians are more favourably disposed to the use of family planning.