2022/11/28 by Eszter Bokányi, Bokányi, Eszter, Eelke M. Heemskerk +3 · 5 citations
Social Sciences · #FOS: Physical sciences #Health disparities and outcomes #Physics and Society (physics.soc-ph) #Social Capital and Networks #Urban, Neighborhood, and Segregation Studies
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2211.15325
openalex publication_date 2022/11/28 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Large-scale human social network structure is typically inferred from digital trace samples of online social media platforms or mobile communication data. Instead, here we investigate the social network structure of a complete population, where people are connected by high-quality links sourced from administrative registers of family, household, work, school, and next-door neighbors. We examine this multilayer social opportunity structure through three common concepts in network analysis: degree, closure, and distance. Findings present how particular network layers contribute to presumably universal scale-free and small-world properties of networks. Furthermore, we suggest a novel measure of excess closure and apply this in a life-course perspective to show how the social opportunity structure of individuals varies along age, socio-economic status, and education level. Our work provides new entry points to understand individual socio-economic failure and success as well as persistent societal problems of inequality and segregation.