The Social and the Sexual: Networks in contemporary demographic research

The analysis of networks has become an important theme in contemporary demographic research in both developed and developing countries, including investigations of the determinants of fertility behaviours, the interaction between social network and social structures and population policies, the role of intergenerational networks in ageing societies, and the relevance for sexual networks for the spread of HIV/AIDS. This chapter reviews the current research on networks across several domains in demographic research, and discusses some of the specific challenges of network-based approaches with respect to data collection, analytic approaches and methodologies, interpretation of results, and micro-tomacro aggregation. It draws on research conducted as part of the Kenyan Diffusion and Ideational Change Project (KDICP), the Malawi Longitudinal Study of Families and Health (MLSFH), and the Likoma Network Study (LNS).