Unpacking the Boundary Conditions and Heterogeneous Effects of Homophily

• In Event: 2350 - Economic Sociology and New Mechanisms for the Production of Inequality

Abstract

A central tenet in sociology is that homophily drives interactions such that people connect with similar others at a higher rate than they do with dissimilar others. Despite this baseline tendency, some work in sociology suggests that birds of a feather do not always flock together. Specifically, there is some evidence that homophily levels may vary across demographic categories. However, it remains unclear whether we should expect historically disadvantaged group members, such as women, to exhibit more or less homophily than their counterparts, namely men. In this study, we examine how homophily levels vary for men and women across two types of exchange—social and resource exchange—within a professional context. We argue that in selecting exchange partners individuals simultaneously have preferences for similar others and more general information about gender expectations and status. Because the gender beliefs that are likely to be invoked differ across types of exchange, we predict that individuals will act on same gender preferences most when the relevant gender expectations for a given type of exchange and homophily preferences align. We leverage unique week-level data from a network of entrepreneurs where we are able to observe all exchanges among network members over a two year period. Further, we observe the full risk set of potential exchange partners allowing us to directly address a recent critique that homophily research tends to confound choice homophily with induced homophily.

Authors

• Mabel Abraham, Columbia University

• Tristan L. Botelho, Yale University