Measuring Social Networks and Social Resources in Comparative Perspective

The ISSP 2017 is dedicated to social networks and social resources. As a world wide survey, ISSP has always given great attention to the issue of comparability in the questionnaire. In the case of social networks, this is even more challenging as different societies can shape different types of social relations which gives rise to support through different means, such as state, market and personal relationships. Therefore, it is important to assess different aspects of social networks and social resources that will be complementary: Therefore, we implemented both position and resources generators, as well as other measures of social integration and exchanges, in order to tackle the different aspects of social networks and social resources. While the position generator assesses the diversity and hierarchy of social networks, the resource generator captures important support needed by individual in concrete life situations.

However, the exact properties of these measures have to be empirically analysed in a comparative perspective. That is why we have conducted a large instrument development survey covering eight countries and more than 3’000 respondents. Based on empirical results of this survey, we will discuss more specifically the equivalence of the instruments measuring social resources, their similarities and differences across countries and how far the social context influence who provides these resources.