NetReg.seIntroduction to the project
The interconnectedness of individuals has long been recognized as a pivotal factor in shaping social processes. We know a lot about how social contacts within various social contexts — households, schools, workplaces, neighborhoods — influence individuals’ health, demographic and socioeconomic outcomes. We know, however, rather little about how these different social contexts are interlinked, and thus we lack a good understanding about the true interconnectedness of society and its consequences.
In order to fill this gap, the proposed research environment utilizes the Swedish population register data for creating large-scale, population-wide networks that integrate multiple social contexts (i.e. multiplex networks). We study their properties, how they evolve, and the consequences they have for various social outcomes. This research is the first in Sweden, and among the first internationally, to create and study longitudinal, multiplex, full-population networks extracted from administrative register data. Substantively, it will provide novel insights into how interwoven and segregated our society is, how influence flows between domains to affect individuals’ outcomes, and how individuals’ networks develop from adolescence into adulthood. This novel insight is highly important despite the limitations of implying network exposure from administrative register data.