Abstract
The position generator is a widespread method for measuring latent social capital in which respondents are queried about contacts on a list of occupations predefined by the analyst. We separate out the unique contribution of each occupation to aggregated measures of social capital. It turns out that this contribution varies vastly: knowing a person in some occupations provides substance to measures of social capital, while knowing a person in a few occupations is irrelevant and contributes statistical noise and causes attenuation bias. We discuss the implication of our findings for the design of position generator measures generally.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 55-63 |
| Journal | Social Networks |
| Volume | 40 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2015 |
Subject classification (UKÄ)
- Sociology (excluding Social Work, Social Psychology and Social Anthropology)
Keywords
- social capital
- position generator
- measurement error
- Jack-knife
- sociologi
- sociology