Homophily and Long-Run Integration in Social Networks

2012/01/22 by Bramoullé, Yann, Currarini, Sergio, Jackson, Matthew O. +2 · 2 citations
#FOS: Computer and information sciences #FOS: Physical sciences #Physics and Society (physics.soc-ph) #Social and Information Networks (cs.SI)

paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1201.4564

Abstract

We model network formation when heterogeneous nodes enter sequentially and form connections through both random meetings and network-based search, but with type-dependent biases. We show that there is "long-run integration," whereby the composition of types in sufficiently old nodes' neighborhoods approaches the global type distribution, provided that the network-based search is unbiased. However, younger nodes' connections still reflect the biased meetings process. We derive the type-based degree distributions and group-level homophily patterns when there are two types and location-based biases. Finally, we illustrate aspects of the model with an empirical application to data on citations in physics journals.

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