Abstract
In this chapter, we explore alternative approaches that can be used to identify and summarise specific combinations of occupations between which social connections are unusually common. Whereas the social interaction distance approach (Chaps. 4, 5, and 6) highlights dimensional structures that reflect social interactions between occupations, we can sometimes draw different conclusions by looking at the same social interaction patterns through different analytical approaches.
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Notes
- 1.
Toubol and Larsen (2017) undertake a similar exercise involving occupations that are connected by career mobility rather than social interactions. They focus on all occurrences with a ratio greater than 1, since they wish to target those occupational combinations between which career mobility is not uncommon.
- 2.
They might, however, be flagged if we used the ‘popularity’ method for identifying networked occupations.
- 3.
In some scenarios, data on social interactions might be taken from complete population datasets, in which case there is a plausible argument that standard error statistics are not required. However, even in this situation, we would argue that uncertainty statistics based upon sampling theories can help us assess the robustness of given results.
- 4.
Other formulations for the standard error of a proportion might be considered, for instance using adjustments that more appropriately reflect the skew associated with low proportions within a dataset.
- 5.
Our formulation allows for an uncertainty estimate around the observed proportion (the number of observed partnerships), but it does not allow for a corresponding uncertainty estimate around the expected proportion, which could in principle also be calculated.
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Lambert, P., Griffiths, D. (2018). Networked Occupations. In: Social Inequalities and Occupational Stratification. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-02253-0_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-02253-0_7
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