Conference Agenda

Major life events (MLEs) can have substantial impacts on people’s social networks. Deaths, illnesses, job changes, and life-course transitions can alter people’s personal social networks. In this paper we explore the effects of MLEs on college student networks at an elite 4-year U.S. residential university. Do MLEs lead to changes in who is in a person’s networks (turnover) while the overall structure (size, clustering, modularity) remains the same? Alternatively, are there also structural changes and if so, are these changes temporary or permanent? We begin to answer these questions by looking at the impact of MLEs on turnover and one important network property, ego network size (nodal degree). Using time-stamped communication event data collected during the NetHealth study of 600+ first year college students over 2-4 years, we construct for each day a student’s personal network. From these networks we compute daily measures of degree, and counts of new, dead and active ties which are used to construct turnover and growth measures. Most students experience an MLE during their college tenure, with the most frequent MLEs being deaths, breakups and illnesses/surgeries. Using a quasi-experimental before-after design, we compare those who experienced an MLE to those who did not by looking at turnover and network size changes from the semester before, during and after an MLE. We examine whether MLE effects are more prevalent within certain demographic groups and for various types of MLEs (positive vs. negative, individual vs. familial, illness vs. relationship breakup).

Having studied the interpersonal networks of the Hungarian adult population over the past three decades, we would like to provide a brief overview of our results, overwhelmingly based on cross-sectional data, which unfortunately do not permit the examination of individual-level changes. However, we have plenty of information collected with the same methods regarding the core discussion networks, the number of friends and weak ties and also several waves of interviews, especially regarding friendships – and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. In our presentation we would like to discuss what kinds of conclusions can we possibly have, based on such data series.

By analyzing Dutch kinship network data from Statistics Netherlands, this study provides a detailed enumeration of kinship ties to grandchildren, children, nieces, nephews, siblings, cousins, parents, aunts, uncles, and grandparents in 2018. In doing so, it replicates the recent work of Kolk et al. (2023), who examined Swedish kinship networks. However, empirical assessments beyond the Swedish context are complicated by exceptionally high data requirements. This study examines whether Kolk et al.’s (2023) Swedish findings are generalizable to another demographically advanced population, the Netherlands, and whether differences in cohort fertility patterns and divorce rates affect the frequencies of different kin types. First, we identified large similarities, supporting the idea that the patterns observed by Kolk et al. (2023) may indeed be generalized to other demographically advanced (Western) contexts. Second, we observed a trickling down of demographic differences—resulting from the Dutch baby boom—from one generation to the next. Third, other family-related behavioral changes, particularly separation and divorce, play an important role in shaping kinship networks and contributing to cross-national differences in their composition. Our replication highlights the importance of empirically validating kinship statistics derived from microsimulations and aggregate demographic data. Further research is needed to track these dynamics over longer time spans and to explore a broader range of cultural and demographic contexts.

Background and objectives: Suicide awareness is a critical aspect of primary suicide prevention, especially among youth. Suicide awareness includes key characteristics such as knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors related to suicide. Despite its importance, there is limited understanding of how perceived suicide awareness is associated with adolescents’ support networks. This cross-sectional personal network analysis examined the composition of the adolescents’ support network and tested the association of this support network with suicide awareness.

Methods: This study used baseline data from a nonrandomized, cluster-controlled trial designed to evaluate the effectiveness of a universal suicide prevention intervention implemented in secondary schools in Switzerland. The study focused on secondary school classes in the French-speaking region of the country, involving a total of 194 adolescents aged 14 years and older. We assessed perceived suicide awareness (measured by the Perceived Suicide Awareness Scale, PSAS-9), support networks (suing name generator), and sociodemographic details. Data were analyzed using factor analysis to identify support network dimensions and linear regressions.

Results: Our findings showed that support networks are organized with 4 factors. On the first factors, parents have high loadings; on the second factors, grandparents have high loadings, on the third factor, uncles and aunts have high loadings, and on the fourth factor, friends have high loadings. Controlling for sociodemographic factors, factors three and four were significantly associated with a higher suicide awareness (b=0.87, p=.044 and b=1.71, p=.003), while factors one and two were not significantly associated with suicide awareness (b=0.68, p=.148 and b=-0.57, p=.162).

Conclusion: This study showed that perceived suicide awareness in adolescents is significantly associated with specific components of their support networks. These findings suggest that peer relationships and certain extended family connections may play a more influential role in adolescents' suicide awareness than immediate family relationships. Future suicide prevention initiatives should consider the differential impact of various support network components, particularly focusing on extended family members.

This paper investigates territorial variation in youth transitions by providing an exploratory analysis of the welfare mix of young adults (the set of institutions they depend on to establish their means of living: family, state, and market). It examines the ties to a complex social system shaped by multilevel interactions between socioeconomic stratification, personal networks, and welfare state contexts.

The paper analyzes the ch-x dataset, a cross-sectional survey of 79,896 Swiss young adults, concerning both a comprehensive mapping of their networks and socio-demographic indicators on them and their alters. It uses Multiple Factor Analysis (MFA) to map the structure of cantonal youth policy programs, to holistically characterize the social capital of respondents, and to trace relationships to specific welfare mixes.

Preliminary results indicate that under similar policy environments, the welfare mix of young adults is related to their network characteristics. In contexts of high welfare effort and academically oriented education systems, exclusive dependency on parents is related to larger networks and higher career support from alters. Both co-dependency on parents and the market, and exclusive market dependency, are linked to more kin-based and dense networks. Nonetheless, network indicators are not tied to a specific welfare mix in cantons where youth policy is structured around vocational education, as co-dependency between parents and the market is predominant.

The study highlights the relevance of holistically addressing social network indicators to operationalize social capital, as well as considering institutional contexts in shaping the relations between the meso- and micro-levels.

(The contribution is part of an ongoing PhD thesis at UNIGE co-supervised by Eric Widmer and Jean-Michel Bonvin)