Mitchell Centre seminar series: Gerald Mollenhorst
| Dates: | 15 April 2015 |
|---|
| Times: | 16:00 - 16:30 |
|---|
| What is it: | Seminar |
|---|
| Organiser: | School of Social Sciences |
|---|
| Speaker: | Gerald Mollenhorst |
|---|
|
Gerald Mollenhorst, Utrecht University, The Netherlands and Stockholm University, Sweden
Changes in personal networks in the Netherlands and Sweden: Assessing the role of social contexts and country of origin.
During this seminar meeting, I will talk about changes in the size and composition of personal networks of individuals in different social contexts and in two countries, i.e., in the Netherlands and in Sweden. How stable is the size and general composition of personal networks over a couple of years? And is there a lot of ‘replacement’ taking place in personal networks over the years? To explain changes in relationships and networks, I primarily pay attention to the role of various social contexts where people meet (such as the work place, family, sports clubs, voluntary associations, and the neighborhood) as well as to the ethnic background / country of origin of the individuals and their associates. Using quantitative ego-centered network data, I show, e.g., that although the average size of the networks of the Dutch (18-70 years of age) only slightly changed over seven years, considerable changes have taken place within their networks over these years. Notably, I found that a lack of meeting opportunities and shared contexts is an important reason why relationships are discontinued, and that there is a path-dependent use of social contexts for the emergence of new relationships. Regarding ethnic background / country of origin, I discuss a) the level of ethnic segregation in personal networks of young native Swedes, and in particular in the networks of young first and second generation immigrants from Iran and former Yugoslavs who currently live in Sweden (all born in 1991), and b) changes in ethnic network segregation and in intra- and interethnic relationships over four years. Next I examine to what extent such changes can be explained in terms of respondents’ ethnic background, length of stay in Sweden and various other indicators for integration in the host country, next to socio-demographic characteristics, life events and changes in the social contexts they shared.
Speaker
Gerald Mollenhorst
Organisation: Utrecht University
Travel and Contact Information
Find event
G6
Humanities Bridgeford Street
Manchester
