Overlapping Social Networks

This study uses Burt’s theory of structural holes and Lin, Fu and Hsung’s theory of position-generated networks to examine a hypothesis about the overlap of couples’ social networks and the degree of joint behaviour in conjugal role relationships. The authors devised five overlap types of couples’ networks based on two-dimensional network characteristics: the diversity of ego’s kin ties and the degree of cross-linkages through spouse’s contacts. They measured the conjugal role by how couples manage their day-to-day expenditure and classified them into three categories: mainly managed by wife, mainly managed by husband and joint management. This study used the 2001 Taiwan Social Change Survey to test the hypothesis on the couples’ networks and conjugal roles. After controlling for all other variables, the overlap types of the couples’ social networks still had significant effects on their management of family expenditure. Specifically, the couples with high diversity of ego’s kin ties and high cross-linkages through spouse practised the joint conjugal role pattern of family expenditure. The reason is that the high diversity of ego’s kin ties provides plural patterns of conjugal roles to be identified and the high cross-linkages through the spouse provide the bargaining power from the spouse.