Human Capital Mismatches along the Career Path

Human capital is transferable across occupations, but only to a limited extent because of differences in occupational skill-profiles. Higher skill overlap between occupations renders less of individuals' human capital useless in occupational switches. Current occupational distance measures neglect that differences in skill complexities between occupations yield skill mismatch asymmetric in nature. We propose characterizing occupational switches in terms of human capital shortages and redundancies. This results in superior predictions of individual wages and occupational switches. It also allows identifying career movements up and down an occupational complexity ladder, and assessing the usefulness of accumulated skill-profiles at an individual's current job.skill mismatch, skill transferability, occupational change, human capital, wages

Omnivorousness in sport: The importance of social capital and networks

There has been for some time a significant and growing body of research around the relationship between sport and social capital. Similarly, within sociology there has been a corpus of work that has acknowledged the emergence of the omnivore–univore relationship. Surprisingly, relatively few studies examining sport and social capital have taken the omnivore–univore framework as a basis for understanding the relationship between sport and social capital. This gap in the sociology of sport literature and knowledge is rectified by this study that takes not Putnam, Coleman or Bourdieu, but Lin’s social network approach to social capital. The implications of this article are that researchers investigating sport and social capital need to understand more about how social networks and places for sport work to create social capital and, in particular, influence participating in sporting activities. The results indicate that social networks both facilitate and constrain sports participation; whilst family and friendship networks are central in active lifestyles, those who are less active have limited networks

Measuring Social Networks and Social Resources: An Exploratory ISSP Survey around the World

This publication documents the development of the ISSP module for the year 2017 titled "Social Networks and Social Resources". The authors begin by discussing instruments that have been developed to measure social relationships and networks. Subsequently, the conceptual framework underlying the module is presented. For the assessment and selection of items for the final module the authors can draw on a rich set of comparative survey data from pretests in China, Taiwan, France, Germany, Switzerland, Turkey, Great Britain, United States and Venezuela. Based on these data measures for all concepts of the theoretical model are derived and preliminary analysis of their validity, reliability and cross-national equivalence are performed. The publication ends with a description of items finally selected for the 2017 ISSP module and some suggestions for analyzing these data.Diese Publikation dokumentiert die Entwicklung des ISSP-Moduls für das Jahr 2017 mit dem Titel "Social Networks and Social Resources". Die Autoren diskutieren zunächst Instrumente, die zur Messung sozialer Beziehungen und Netzwerke entwickelt wurden. Anschließend wird der dem Modul zugrunde liegende konzeptionelle Rahmen vorgestellt. Für die Bewertung und Auswahl der Fragen für das endgültige Modul können die Autoren auf einen umfangreichen Satz vergleichender Umfragedaten aus Pretests in China, Taiwan, Frankreich, Deutschland, der Schweiz, der Türkei, Großbritannien, den USA und Venezuela zurückgreifen. Basierend auf diesen Daten werden Messungen für alle Konzepte des theoretischen Modells abgeleitet und eine vorläufige Analyse ihrer Gültigkeit, Zuverlässigkeit und länderübergreifenden Äquivalenz durchgeführt. Die Veröffentlichung endet mit einer Beschreibung der schließlich für das ISSP-Modul 2017 ausgewählten Fragen und einigen Vorschlägen zur Analyse dieser Daten

Measuring Social Networks and Social Resources: An Exploratory ISSP Survey around the World

This publication documents the development of the ISSP module for the year 2017 titled "Social Networks and Social Resources". The authors begin by discussing instruments that have been developed to measure social relationships and networks. Subsequently, the conceptual framework underlying the module is presented. For the assessment and selection of items for the final module the authors can draw on a rich set of comparative survey data from pretests in China, Taiwan, France, Germany, Switzerland, Turkey, Great Britain, United States and Venezuela. Based on these data measures for all concepts of the theoretical model are derived and preliminary analysis of their validity, reliability and cross-national equivalence are performed. The publication ends with a description of items finally selected for the 2017 ISSP module and some suggestions for analyzing these data

Employing Position Generators to Assess Social Capital and Health: A Scoping Review of the Literature and Recommendations for Measurement in Future Population-Based Surveillance

Beneficial social connections are critical to individual-level health because they can be used to avoid or minimize the risks and consequences associated with diseases. How to best measure beneficial social connections to inform social network-level health interventions remains poorly understood. A scoping review of health surveillance studies was conducted to highlight the utility of employing position generators to assess how access to beneficial social connections was associated with population health and disparities. Our review yielded 39 articles conducted across 14 predominantly high-income countries. Most studies (77%) with composite measures for beneficial social connections exhibited health-protective associations. Of the remaining articles, half found that greater diversity within one’s network was associated with positive health outcomes. Only eight articles accounted for differences by advantaged statuses, indicating that beneficial connections elicited greater health-protective associations among disadvantaged groups. Employing position generators may inform interventions that seek to reduce health disparities by enhancing social capital in individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds

Social Ties, Network Socioeconomic Diversity and Sporting Event Attendance

[Abstrac] Heterogeneous social networks are the source of valued life outcomes, and this heterogeneity is associated with different circumstances and personal attributes. This paper analyses the size and socioeconomic diversity of social networks of people who attend sporting events. The relationship between sports participation and social networks has been widely analysed. However, the role of attending sporting events in the creation of different forms of social capital, specifically networks’ socioeconomic heterogeneity, remains unclear. A better understanding of this issue may help to clarify the social impact of sports participation. Drawing on a unique dataset collected through the administration of a questionnaire to a representative sample of the Spanish population and employing an ad hoc, class-based position generator, we show that attendance to sporting events is associated with social mixing and the creation of networks of people from different occupational classes. Indeed, the size of these effects increases with the frequency of attendance. These results suggest that attending sporting events is associated with bridging social capital and may foster social integration and life opportunities for those who are less advantaged

Who you know: the classed structure of social capital

This article focuses on the social structuring of social capital, understood as resources embedded in social networks. The analysis integrates key theoretical–methodological insights from two distinct approaches concerned with social capital and inequality: the position-generator approach associated with Nan Lin and the spatial approach associated with Pierre Bourdieu. Empirically, we exploit the possibilities of survey data containing detailed information about the social ties of a representative sample of the Norwegian adult population (N = 4007). By means of Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA), we construct a space of social ties, a spatial representation of systematic similarities and differences between individuals' social ties to a set of 33 occupational positions. In this space, social capital is structured according to two primary dimensions: (i) the level of social ties, in terms of individuals' number of contacts; and (ii), the quality of social ties, in terms of a division between being connected to others in high-status positions and others in low-status positions. By means of Ascending Hierarchical Cluster analysis, five clusters are identified within the space of social ties: a homogenous working-class cluster, a well-connected working-class cluster, a cluster of high-status ties, a homogenous high-status cluster and a low-volume cluster. Moreover, the analysis clearly indicates that the structure of social capital is connected to respondents' class positions, their volumes of cultural and economic capital and their class origin. The analysis thus draws attention to the role of social capital in processes of social closure, regarding both resource monopolization and class formation.publishedVersio

A review of data sources for studying social interactions between the incumbents of occupations

In the ESRC project ‘Social Networks and Occupational Structure' (or ‘SoNOcS', seewww.camsis.stir.ac.uk/sonocs), we are interested in exploring empirical patterns ofsocial connections between occupations. We focus upon the incumbents ofoccupational positions, and seek to obtain data on the occupations held by otherindividuals with whom meaningful social connections are measured. This style ofanalysis has a long history in projects which explore social interaction distancesbetween occupations on the basis of patterns of friendship, marriage or cohabitation(e.g. Chan, 2010a; Laumann & Guttman, 1966; Prandy, 1990; Stewart, Prandy, &Blackburn, 1973; Stewart, Prandy, & Blackburn, 1980). Our own plans are to usethese data resources to study average patterns of social distance between occupations,and network patterns in social connections between occupations