Measuring Networks beyond the Origin Family

• Author: Robert D. Mare
• DOI: 10.1177/0002716214548410
• Date: 01 January 2015
• Published date: 01 January 2015
• Subject Matter: Section II: Special Topics Relevant to Building a New Infrastructure

ANNALS, AAPSS, 657, January 2015 97

DOI: 10.1177/0002716214548410DOI: 10.1177/0002716214548410

Measuring

Networks

beyond the

Origin Family

By

ROBERT D. MARE

548410ANN The Annals of the American AcademyMeasuring Networks Beyond the Origin Family

research-article2014

Studies of social mobility typically focus on the associa-

tions between the socioeconomic characteristics of

individuals and families in one generation and those

same characteristics for the next generation. Yet the life

chances of individuals may be affected by a wider net-

work of kin than just the nuclear family, including

grandparents, aunts and uncles, siblings, and even

more remote kin. In planning new studies of intergen-

erational social mobility, researchers should consider

the ways that more remote kin may affect socioeco-

nomic success and hardship and design data collection

strategies for collecting data on wider kin networks.

Administrative record linkage and survey research have

complementary advantages for identifying kin net-

works. Successful implementation of these approaches

holds the promise of a much richer set of studies of

intergenerational social mobility than most researchers

have attempted thus far.

Keywords: kin networks; social mobility; demogra-

phy; family

This article provides a rationale for consider-

ing the role of kin and other networks

beyond the nuclear family in any new study of

social mobility and discusses some relevant

data collection design considerations. To orient

this discussion I make several assumptions: (1)

the major purpose of a mobility study is to pro-

vide data on the inter and intragenerational

mobility on social and economic characteristics

of both individuals and families, variously con-

ceived; (2) the resulting data are intended to be

widely useful for making comparisons within

the population covered by the study and

Robert D. Mare is a distinguished professor of sociology

at UCLA and a senior research fellow at the Institute

for Analytical Sociology, Linköping University. His

research focuses on the connection between demo-

graphic processes and social inequalities, including

inequality in educational opportunities, social mobility,

youth unemployment, differential mortality, residential

segregation and mobility, marriage markets, and family

structure and poverty.