Life course transitions and changes in network ties among younger and older adults.

Several theories of the life course highlight the importance of social connections and ties for coping with transitions that occur at different ages. Individuals rely on family, friends, and colleagues to adapt to these transitions which may in turn change the composition of their networks. Yet, little is known about the association between life cycle transitions and changes in network characteristics. We used fixed effects regression models with three waves of egocentric network data from the UC Berkeley Social Network Study (UCNets) to examine how career- and family-related life cycle transitions during two key life stages-young adulthood and the transition from middle to old age-are associated with network turnover, the proportion of the network comprised of kin, and confidence in receiving support from personal networks. Younger adults experienced churn following a birth and marriage or partnership, while no life transition was associated with changes in proportion kin, and only with the birth of a child did confidence decline. Among older adults, no transition was associated with any measured event, suggesting that older adults maintain more stable relationships compared to young adults and can weather life events without significant disruptions to their networks.

How New is "New"? Who Gets Added in a Panel Study of Personal Networks?

Using longitudinal data from UCNets, we examined newly-listed alters and distinguished between truly new ties who were recently met (typically coworkers and acquaintances) and awakened ties who were previously known to ego (typically extended kin and friends). Half of the newly-listed ties among the younger respondents were truly new, whereas two-thirds among the older respondents were awakened. In both groups, however, most alters were previously listed. These ties mainly included kin, confidants, and advisors, suggesting stability in the network core. Methodological implications for the name-generating process and substantive implications for the understanding of network dynamics and structure are discussed.

Causal Relationships between Personal Networks and Health: A Comparison of Three Modeling Strategies.

Prior research documents associations between personal network characteristics and health, but establishing causation has been a long-standing research priority. To evaluate approaches to causal inference in egocentric network data, this article uses three waves from the University of California Berkeley Social Networks Study (N = 1,159) to investigate connections between nine network variables and two global health outcomes. We compare three modeling strategies: cross-sectional ordinary least squares regression, regression with lagged dependent variables (LDVs), and hybrid fixed and random effects models. Results suggest that cross-sectional and LDV models may overestimate the causal effects of networks on health because hybrid models show that network-health associations operate primarily between individuals, as opposed to network changes causing within-individual changes in health. These findings demonstrate uses of panel data that may advance scholarship on networks and health and suggest that causal effects of network support on health may be more limited than previously thought.

Who is Dropped and Why? Methodological and Substantive Accounts for Network Loss.

High rates of egocentric network turnover are frequently observed but not well explained. About 1,000 respondents to the UCNets survey named an average of 10 names in each of two waves a year apart. Consistent with prior studies, respondents in wave 2 failed to relist about half of the names they provided in wave 1. Asked why, respondents explained that they had forgotten the alter for about 40 percent of the missing names. Other common answers, such as no "occasion... to be in touch," also suggest that the true rate of alters being dropped is probably under 20 percent. Multilevel logit models identified the predictors of alters being dropped (neither relisted nor forgotten) versus retained. Immediate kin were likeliest to be retained and roommates, coworkers, and acquaintances to be dropped. Alters who provided companionship, confiding, advice, and emergency help were especially likely to be retained, as were those to whom respondents felt close. Little about the respondents themselves affected drop rates: having moved recently, having a close friend die, or having had an important relationship break up. Results are consistent with the argument that a tie's degree of constraint (notably being close family) and its balance of rewards determine the likelihood of it being dropped or demoted.

Mode and Interviewer Effects in Egocentric Network Research.

Surveys of egocentric networks are especially vulnerable to methods effects. This study combines a true experiment-random assignment of respondents to receive essentially identical questions from either an in-person interviewer or an online survey--with audio recordings of the in-person interviews. We asked over 850 respondents from a general population several different name-eliciting questions. Face-to-face interviews yielded more cooperation and higher quality data but fewer names than did the web surveys. Exploring several explanations, we determine that interviewer differences account for the mode difference: Interviewers who consistently prompted respondents elicited as many alters as did the web survey and substantially more than did less active interviewers. Although both methods effects substantially influenced the volume of alters listed, they did not substantially modify associations of other variables with volume.

Difficult People: Who Is Perceived to Be Demanding in Personal Networks and Why Are They There?

Why do people maintain ties with individuals whom they find difficult? Standard network theories imply that such alters are avoided or dropped. Drawing on a survey of over 1,100 diverse respondents who described over 12,000 relationships, we examined which among those ties respondents nominated as a person whom they "sometimes find demanding or difficult." Those so listed composed about 15 percent of all alters in the network. After holding ego and alter traits constant, close kin, especially women relatives and aging parents, were especially likely to be named as difficult alters. Non-kin described as friends were less, and those described as co-workers more, likely to be listed only as difficult alters. These results suggest that normative and institutional constraints may force people to retain difficult and demanding alters in their networks. We also found that providing support to alters, but not receiving support from those alters, was a major source of difficulty in these relationships. Furthermore, the felt burden of providing support was not attenuated by receiving assistance, suggesting that alters involved in reciprocated exchanges were not less often labeled difficult than were those in unreciprocated ones. This study underlines the importance of constraints in personal networks.

Changes in support networks in late middle age: the extension of gender and educational differences.

OBJECTIVES: This paper tests whether differences by gender and by educational attainment in contact with friends and family and in support expected from friends and family narrow or widen in late middle age. METHODS: The data are drawn from about 4,800 members of the Wisconsin Longitudinal Survey who answered questions about their frequency of contact with social ties and expectations of 3 kinds of help in both 1993, when they were in their early 50s, and again in 2004. RESULTS: Using lagged dependent variable models, we find that between their 50s and 60s women's network advantages over men and college graduates' network advantages over high school graduates in frequency of social contact widened. The same was roughly true as well for expectations of social support, although here the divergences depended partly on the type of the support: Women gained relative to men in "talk" support and in help from nonkin if ill, but lost ground in financial support. The college-educated gained ground in all sorts of support from nonkin. DISCUSSION: These results reinforce concern that late middle age is a period when men and the less educated become yet more disadvantaged in social support, making attention to connectedness yet more critical.

Distinguishing the geographic levels and social dimensions of U.S. metropolitan segregation, 1960-2000.

In this article, we assess trends in residential segregation in the United States from 1960 to 2000 along several dimensions of race and ethnicity, class, and life cycle and present a method for attributing segregation to nested geographic levels. We measured segregation for metropolitan America using the Theil index, which is additively decomposed into contributions of regional, metropolitan, center city-suburban, place, and tract segregation. This procedure distinguishes whether groups live apart because members cluster in different neighborhoods, communities, metropolitan areas, or regions. Substantively, we found that the segregation of blacks decreased considerably after 1960 largely because neighborhoods became more integrated, but the foreign born became more segregated largely because they concentrated in particular metropolitan areas. Class segregation increased between 1970 and 1990 mainly because the affluent increasingly clustered in specific metropolitan areas and in specific municipalities within metropolitan areas. The unmarried increasingly congregated in center cities. The main purpose of this article is to describe and illustrate this multilevel approach to studying segregation.