Extrapolative simulation of neighborhood networks based on population spatial distribution: Do they predict crime?

Objectives

Previous criminological scholarship has posited that network ties among neighborhood residents may impact crime rates, but has done little to consider the specific ways in which network structure may enhance or inhibit criminal activity. A lack of data on social ties has arguably led to this state of affairs. We propose to avoid this limitation by demonstrating a novel approach of extrapolatively simulating network ties and constructing structural network measures to assess their effect on neighborhood crime rates.

Methods

We first spatially locate the households of a city into their constituent blocks. Then, we employ spatial interaction functions based on prior empirical work and simulate a network of social ties among these residents. From this simulated network, we compute network statistics that more appropriately capture the notions of cohesion and information diffusion that underlie theories of networks and crime.

Results

We show that these network statistics are robust predictors of the levels of crime in five separate cities (above standard controls) at the very micro geographic level of blocks and block groups.

Conclusions

We conclude by considering extensions of the approach that account for homophily in the formation of network ties.     

Caregiver–Youth Communication about Sex in South Africa: The Role of Maternal Child Sexual Abuse History

Much of the research on child sexual abuse focuses on negative outcomes. This brief report explores a potentially protective parenting behavior among black South African female caregivers with and without a child sexual abuse history. Using cross-sectional baseline data, we hypothesized that caregiver child sexual abuse history would be positively associated with caregiver–youth sex communication and this relationship would be strongest for girls. Youth whose caregiver experienced child sexual abuse were more likely to report communicating with their caregiver about sex than youth whose caregivers did not experience child sexual abuse; however, this relation did not hold for caregiver reported communication. Child sexual abuse survivors’ ability and decision to discuss sex with their youth has the potential to protect youth from sexual risk and demonstrates resilience among a group rarely acknowledged for positive parenting practices.     

The educational legacy of unauthorized migration: comparisons across U.S.-immigrant groups in how parents' status affects their offspring

This research compares several national-origin groups in terms of how parents’ entry, legalization and naturalization (i.e., membership) statuses relate to their children’s educational attainment. In the case of Asian groups, the members of which predominantly come to the United States as permanent legal migrants, we hypothesize (1) that father’s and mother’s statuses will be relatively homogenous and few in number and (2) that these will exert minimal net effects on second-generation attainment. For Mexicans, many of whom initially come as temporary unauthorized migrants, we hypothesize (1) that parental status combinations will be heterogeneous and greater in number and (2) that marginal membership statuses will exert negative net effects on education in the second generation. To assess these ideas, we analyze unique intergenerational data from Los Angeles on the young adult members of second-generation national-origin groups and their parents. The findings show that Asian immigrant groups almost universally exhibit similar father–mother migration statuses and high educational attainment among children. By contrast, Mexicans manifest more numerous discrepant father–mother combinations, with those in which the mother remains unauthorized carrying negative implications for children’s schooling. The paper discusses the theoretical and policy implications of the delays in incorporation that result from Mexican Americans needing extra time and resources compared to the members of other groups to overcome their handicap of marginal membership status (i.e., being more likely to enter and remain unauthorized).     

Differences in Adolescent Experiences of Polyvictimization and Suicide Risk by Sexual Minority Status

Sexual minority adolescents (SMA) report more suicide risk behaviors than heterosexual adolescents. Polyvictimization (co‐occurrence of multiple types of victimization) may be an important, underresearched correlate of this disparity. With the 2017 national Youth Risk Behavior Survey (N = 13,179), national estimates of polyvictimization and suicide risk were assessed among high school students by sexual minority status (SM vs. heterosexual), and multivariate relationships between sexual minority status, polyvictimization, and suicide risk were tested. Additionally, risk profiles of those who experienced polyvictimization (2 + types of victimization; n = 1,932) were compared across sexual minority status. Results confirm that SMA are more likely to experience polyvictimization than heterosexual adolescents (31.8% v. 12.9%, respectively); however, also indicate that polyvictimization does not fully explain elevated suicide risk among SMA.     

Micro-structure in micro-neighborhoods: A new social distance measure,and its effect on individual and aggregated perceptions of crime and disorder

This study links social network methodology with the social disorganization literature to test the effect of block-level social distance on neighborhood perceived crime and disorder. Employing a unique study design that allows creating matrices of social distance (based on demographic characteristics) between 11 residents on each of over 650 blocks at three time points, we find that more socially distant residents perceive more disorder than their neighbors. Consistent with the bridging social capital literature, overall social distance in the block has a curvilinear relationship with perceived crime. And blocks with two cohesive subgroups, based on social distance, have lower levels of perceived disorder.     

Laziness or liberation? Labor market policies and workers' attitudes toward employment flexibility

This study examined the relationship between labor market policies and employees' willingness to make concessions in order to avoid unemployment. In contrast to previous work that analyzed the behavior of employers and the unemployed, we examined how labor market policies influence employees' flexibility. Multilevel modeling techniques were applied to a data set that was created by combining individual‐level data from the International Social Survey Program (ISSP) with country‐level information from the Organization for Cooperation and Economic Development. The main findings of our analyses were that dismissal protection and unemployment benefits do make a difference to employees' willingness to make concessions, and that the relationships between the willingness to make concessions and labor market policies are nonlinear. Substantively, these nonlinear relationships suggest that employees' willingness to be flexible is negatively associated with both “too much” and “too little” social protection.     

Management und Teilzeit? – Eine empirische Analyse zur Verbreitung von Teilzeitarbeit unter Managerinnen und Managern in Europa

Part-time work helps organizations to ensure flexibility and allows employees to combine work and family duties. However, despite their desire to work reduced hours, many individuals work full-time – particularly those in leadership positions. This article therefore examines which factors contribute to the use of part-time work among managers. By analysing a data set that combines individual-level data from the European Labor Force Survey (2009) with country-level information from various sources, we identify the circumstances under which managers reduce their working hours and the factors that explain the variations in part-time work among managers in Europe. Our multi-level analyses show that normative expectations and cultural facts rather than legal regulations can explain these cross-national differences.     

Model Fit in Structural Equation Models with Censored, Ordinal, and Dichotomous Variables: Testing Vanishing Tetrads

Although the methodology for handling ordinal and dichotomous observed variables in structural equation models (SEMs) is developing rapidly, several important issues are unresolved. One of these is the optimal test statistic to apply as a test of overall model fit. We propose a new "vanishing tetrad" test statistic for such models. We build on Bollen's (1990) simultaneous test statistic for testing multiple vanishing tetrads and on Bollen and Ting's (1993) confirmatory tetrad analysis (CTA) for hypothesis testing of model structures. These and other works on vanishing tetrads assume continuous observed variables and do not consider observed categorical variables. In this paper we present a method to test models when some or all of the observed variables are collapsed or categorical versions of underlying continuous variables. The test statistic that we provide is an alternative "overall fit" statistic for SEMs with censored, ordinal, or dichotomous observed variables. Furthermore, the vanishing tetrad test sometimes permits us to compare the fit of some models that are not nested in the traditional likelihood ratio test. We illustrate the new test statistic with examples and a small simulation experiment comparing it with two other tests of model fit for SEMs with ordinal or dichotomous endogenous variables.     

Geographical variability and network structure

In this paper, we explore the potential implications of geographical variability for the structure of social networks. Beginning with some basic simplifying assumptions, we derive a number of ways in which local network structure should be expected to vary across a region whose population is unevenly distributed. To examine the manner in which these effects would be expected to manifest given realistic population distributions, we then perform an exploratory simulation study that examines the features of large-scale interpersonal networks generated using block-level data from the 2000 U.S. Census. Using a stratified sample of micropolitan and metropolitan areas with populations ranging from approximately 1000 to 1,000,000 persons, we extrapolatively simulate network structure using spatial network models calibrated to two fairly proximate social relations. From this sample of simulated networks, we examine the effect of both within-location and between-location heterogeneity on a variety of structural properties. As we demonstrate, geographical variability produces large and distinctive features in the “social fabric” that overlies it; at the same time, however, many aggregate network properties can be fairly well-predicted from relatively simple spatial demographic variables. The impact of geographical variability is thus predicted to depend substantially on the type of network property being assessed, and on the spatial scale involved.