Occupational Network Structure and Vector Assortativity for illustrating patterns of social mobility

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel vector assortativity measure for occupational networks to analyze social mobility patterns, demonstrating its similarity to scalar measures using Indian employment data.

Contribution

It provides a closed-form expression for vector assortativity in social mobility networks, extending existing scalar measures and applying it to real-world Indian data.

Findings

Vector assortativity trends align with scalar measures.

The measure captures social mobility patterns effectively.

Application to Indian data demonstrates practical utility.

Abstract

In this study we arrive at a closed form expression for measuring vector assortativity in networks motivated by our use-case which is to observe patterns of social mobility in a society. Based on existing works on social mobility within economics literature, and social reproduction within sociology literature, we motivate the construction of an occupational network structure to observe mobility patterns. Basing on existing literature, over this structure, we define mobility as assortativity of occupations attributed by the representation of categories such as gender, geography or social groups. We compare the results from our vector assortativity measure and averaged scalar assortativity in the Indian context, relying on NSSO 68th round on employment and unemployment. Our findings indicate that the trends indicated by our vector assortativity measure is very similar to what is indicated by the averaged scalar assortativity index. We discuss some implications of this work and suggest future directions.