Social networks not only reflect our personal relationships but also determine access to key opportunities in life, such as emotional support, access to employment, and social mobility. The seemingly innocuous decisions we make when building our networks can generate unexpected biases and inequalities in the visibility of minority groups. Understanding how these networks are formed is essential to addressing these social inequalities.
This line of research focuses on how multiple identity dimensions—such as gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status—jointly influence the formation of social connections. Through innovative models, it analyzes how connection preferences and correlations between attributes produce complex inequalities, known as intersectional inequalities, that go unnoticed if the dimensions are studied separately. This approach has concrete applications, such as promoting the social integration of migrants in schools or increasing the visibility of minorities in professional settings, combining network theory, mathematical modeling, and analysis of large databases.
References:
- S. Martin-Gutierrez, M. N. Cartier van Dissel and F. Karimi, “Intersectional inequalities in social networks”, arXiv 2410.21189 (2024). Under review in Science Advances.
- S. Martin-Gutierrez, M. N. Cartier van Dissel and F. Karimi, “The hidden architecture of connections: How do multidimensional identities shape our social networks?”, arXiv 2406.17043 (2024). Under review in Communications Physics.
DEFE Researcher: Samuel Martín Gutiérrez.