ABSTRACT. The paper aims to prove how suitable the Sequence Analysis’ tools are for studying the complexity of Italian Higher Education System. Through longitudinal administrative data of a cohort (AY 2001-2002) of enrolled for the first time at Sapienza University of Roma, this approach permits to: (1) describe the phenomena of late graduate and late performance (retention); (2) identify different type of students’ dropping out (attrition); (3) evaluate others particular phenomena (that are frequent in Italy) that can delay the students’ career (as such as intra or extra faculty mobility).

ABSTRACT. We are interested in the role tuition fees play in social reproduction. We use retrospective biographical data from a series of surveys on family events, long series on tuition fees and methods from event history analysis to study the effect of the level of tuition fees on university enrolment in two Canadian provinces, Quebec and Ontar-io. We focus on the variation of their effect on enrolment according to social origin, province, language and immigration status. Not con-sidering age, the level of tuition fees increases enrolment for children of highly educated parents or immigrants, has no effect among the Quebec English-speaking, but decreases enrolment in all other groups. However, in most groups, the deterring effect increases with age. Among immigrants and their children, as well as among the Ontario English-speaking, the slope of the relation between the effect of tuition fees and age is markedly steep: In these groups, there seems to be a limited age window during which parents are willing to invest in their children’s education.

ABSTRACT. Using a natural experiment, a sharp rise in tuition fees in some of the programmes at the University of Paris 9-Dauphine, we study the impact of tuition fees on students’ pathways, and outcomes. We apply an optimal matching method to the national database of students’ registrations (SISE) to define a typology of pathways. We then use a non-ordered multinomial logit model to evaluate the impact of the rise in tuition fees on the types of pathways selected by the university. We show that there is a significant impact on these pathways. The increase in tuition fees reduces geographic and social mobility, thereby accentuating phenomena of social segregation. Furthermore, contrary to what some of the studies assert, the rise does not appear to encourage greater effort: we find no impact on the graduation success rate.

ABSTRACT. Taking more than the “traditional” amount of time to graduate is an increasingly common path for undergraduate students at both the baccalaureate and associate levels. The expectation that these degrees can be earned in four and two years respectively is less likely to hold for students, especially those at public uni-versities. This study uses transcript data from a large, urban public university sys-tem to examine patterns of enrollment among delayed completers. For the purpos-es of the analysis, delayed graduation is defined as more than six years for a baccalaureate degree and four years for an associate degree.

ABSTRACT. For a causality oriented analysis of sequences, namely by estimating their covariation with exogenous social variables like social-economic status, gender, age or attributes of family of origin, structural pattern, which characterizes a sequence, has to be represented by a quantifying indicator. One way is to capture a sequence’s complexity, by constructing an indicator with a specific quantitative range. Two prominent approaches, Gabadinho et al. (2011) and Elzinga (2010) propose each a different approach to incorporate crucial features of sequence patterning like variety (qualitative differentiation of states), variability (temporal differentiation of states as episodes) and regularity (repetition of subsequences) . As both indicators want to be named as complexity indices, we will label the Gabadinho et al. approach as complexity C and Elzinga’s definition as complexity T. In a detailed conceptual analysis we discuss the foundation and restrictions of their components like transition rate, normalized entropy, number of distinct successive states and normalized episode duration variability. Further we examine interchangeability of C and T as is stated by Gabadinho et al (2011). We find – based on comparing C and T for nine systematically varied sequences – that there is nearly no co-variation between C and T. A more extensive empirical analysis of 2000 sequences of leisure activities on Sunday, based on the German Time Use Survey of 2001/2002, we find seemingly support for the interchangeability thesis as it is reflected in a Pearson correlation score of .94 between C and T. But a multivariate modeling of T and C of leisure time sequences on Sunday as outcome of social determinants like gender, age, family status, net household income, household size, education status and occupational status reveal significant differences between the models. This points to the finding, that T and C might represent (at least partially) substantially different processes of sequence patterning. This assumption finds support in modeling the social effects on the components of C and T separately. In sum, we conclude that it might be more adequate to analyse the components of C and T separately instead of their joint incorporation into C and T, because the components especially like normalized entropy and number distinct successive subsequences seem to represent different processes of sequence differentiation like variety and regularity.

ABSTRACT. In this paper we investigate the early employment insecurity of young people’s career by applying the “index of complexity”. This index measures the entropy and the number of transitions within a sequence (Gabadinho et al 2010). The entropy indicates the distribution of different positions within a sequence, hence its higher of lower degree of predictability; the number of transitions reveals the instability of the trajectory. This index is used to described the quality of young people’s trajectories in the UK using the UKHLS, also known as Understanding Society. The index is calculated for the trajectories covering the first four waves (2009-2013). The index is then used to unveil the relationship between a young person’s past trajectory and their labour market position in the fifth wave (2013-2014). We expect that young people with unstable trajectories are more likely to be out of the labour market or in temporary employment. This will confirm the scarring effect of early employment precariousness.

ABSTRACT. In this paper we propose a measure to quantify successfulness in binary sequences that can be meaningfully interpreted as sequences of Successes and Failures. In order to operationalize the concept of successful and less successful sequences, we formulate some general properties that a measure of successfulness must adhere to, construct a measure that does fulfill these requirements and, finally, show that the measure can be modeled in a theoretically meaningful way. Furthermore, we show an application of our measure to model the successfulness of binary sequences on the labor market.

ABSTRACT. Occupational career patterns are conceptualized as sequences that consist of individuals’ occupational states and employer changes. These sequences are often similar, as many careers are path dependent and follow general patterns. Our hypothesis is that employee turnover can be predicted by employer changes of individuals with similar career trajectories. We derived 1,651 career sequences that incorporate 20 years of individuals’ occupational positions from a large national panel. The similarity of career sequences was assessed with the optimal matching method. We then used the resulting similarity measures as weights for a novel predictor of individuals’ employer changes. In support of our hypothesis, employer changes in similar career sequences predicted turnover. The method introduced in this study could help in reinforcing the use of prospective, longitudinal designs in career literature.

ABSTRACT. The rise of collaborations between scientific research and private industry holds a central place in contemporary debates on the autonomy of science and higher education. These collaborations can take various forms and evolve in time. This contribution focuses on Swiss professors’ professional careers as a dimension of the ties that participate to define the changing boundaries between academic and private sector. Taking the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and its professors as case study, which underwent profound changes since the 1990s, we analyze the evolution of career patterns of professors for three benchmark cohorts: 1980: N=112, 2000: N=144, 2010: N=209. For these three cohorts, we look systematically at different indicators of careers from the age of 20 to the age of 65 both within and outside the academic field. By using sequence analysis, we open an innovative perspective on the analysis of collaborations between scientific research and the private sector, both biographically and historically.

ABSTRACT. This paper explores the career trajectories of the 423 individuals identified as the power elite in the core of the Danish Elite Network (Ellersgaard 2015; Larsen 2015) through sequence analysis. We identify patterns in four distinct sequences - sectorial, occupational, organisational and geographical - enabling us to explore the relationship between career path and current position within the different sec-tors of the power elite. The four sequences are used to explore how elite cohesion and oppositions are created through four different mechanism: 1) inter-sectoral mobility 2) career slope 3) character formation through organisational adaption and 4) location in relation to the national and international power centers.

Methodologically, we identify career segments based on optimal matching (Abbott & Hrycak 1990; Blair-Loy 1999) of the career trajectories in the four dif-ferent types of sequences mentioned above of the 423 individuals in the core of the elite network. We investigate the alignment between these multiple sequences. Furthermore, we identify other social characteristics of the segments such as their gender, social background and educational profile. Finally, we explore the rela-tionship between cohesion based on social ties and cohesion based on similarities in career trajectory through distances in sequence patterns and sociometric geodestics derived from the network database (Ellersgaard & Larsen 2015). These analysis serves to explore cohesion and fragmentation across the elite based on career trajectories within the type of sequences.

The inter-sectoral mobility is analysed to discuss to what extent career path re-flect current sector affiliation. Michael Hartmann (2010: 292) defines inter-sectoral mobility as the degree to which elite individuals have careers that span several of the key sectors in a society, which in turn creates larger homogeneity among the individuals at the very top. These patterns of revolving doors described by Mills (1956: 287) as ‘the heavy traffic between the … structures, often in very intricate patterns’ or ‘the interchangeability of positions’ add to the cohesion of the power elite. The exchange of a key position within one field to a key position in another has also been described though the term pantouflage by Pierre Bourdieu (1996). Furthermore, we access the flow - and the direction of the flow - between sectors (Denord, Lagneau-Ymonet & Thine 2011:34). The Danish case is particularly interesting as it is expected that there is comparatively little inter-sectoral mobility (Hartmann 2010).

The career slopes for each individual towards the position at the apex of the elite network is used to assess the velocity of career ascent. By identifying which occupational position and the hierarchy of promotions needed, the career progres-sion of elite individuals can be compared across sectors. Again following Hart-mann (2000) and Mills (1956) this may be tied to socialization within the same classes as dominate the sector or field, the elite individual is rising though. Fur-thermore, career slopes reveal the average time investment need to achieve a dominant position in the sector or field (cf. Bourdieu 1986).

The organisational adaptation follows the number and type of organisations within the career trajectories of elite individuals. We explore whether individuals are shaped by the same type of organisations, i.e. banks or the ministry of justice, thus creating a similar life experience, outlook and character within this group (Mills 1956). In particular, we investigate the importance of career positions in academies (Cappelli & Hamori 2005: 25), that is, certain firms or institutions en-dowing their former employees with an aura of excellence such as consulting giant McKinsey & Company or the grand corps in France (cf. Bourdieu 1996). Furthermore, we investigate how indicators of involvement in the political or organisational field may later lead to entry in these sectors.

The movement towards the power centre follows the location of employment of the elite individuals. Two different aspects are of interest here. First, the dynamics between center and periphery within Denmark. Who have to move around in the provinces before returning to the power centre of the capital and who manage to enter the elite network without having geographical ties to the capital. Second, to what extent have individuals gathered cosmopolitan capital (Weenink 2008, Bühlman, David & Mach 2013). By looking at the specific area of employment or education abroad we differentiate between the status of areas based on their position in world system theory (Chase-Dunn, Kawano & Brewer 2000) and in the World City System (Alderson & Beckfield 2004).

In conclusion, we compare segments derived from each of the four types of se-quences and discuss how the current sector affiliation of the elite individual is re-flected in his or her career trajectory. Do careers and experiences intertwine, creat-ing potential for shared understandings, personal ties and thus even stronger cohesion within the core group of the Danish elite network or do careers follow distinct paths in different sectors.

Our preliminary analysis suggests that career patterns overlap substantially with the current sector affiliation of the members of the elite networks. This even applies to careers within the very same organisations in these sectors. In particular, the senior civil servants, the chief executives of the largest corporations, the scientists and the union leaders follow distincts paths. However, two groups appear to deviate from the sector specific career patterns. First, managers of organisations that themselves cross between sectors such as state-owned enterprises, national research centers or university based tech corporations. Second, a small group of multipositionals (cf. Boltanski 1973) bridge between the distinct career patterns found in different sectors. This group is further characterized by also holding the most central network positions, having attended the most typical university programmes for the elite and a having long careers. Thus we find a core within the core (cf. Denord, Hjellbrekke et al 2011) who holds the most senior positions within the field of power and both through current and former ties are well-connected to all key sectors within the Danish welfare state.

References: Abbott, Andrew, og Alexandra Hrycak. 1990 «Measuring Resemblance in Se-quence Data: An Optimal Matching Analysis of Musicians’ Careers». American Journal of Sociology 96 (1): 144–85. Alderson, Arthur S., og Jason Beckfield. 2014. «Power and Position in the World City System». American Journal of Sociology 109 (4): 811–51. Blair‐Loy, Mary. 1999. «Career Patterns of Executive Women in Finance: An Optimal Matching Analysis». American Journal of Sociology 104 (5): 1346–97. Boltanski, Luc. 1973. «L’espace positionnel. Multiplicité des positions institu-tionnelles et habitus de classe». Revue française de sociologie 14 (1): 3–26. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1986. «The forms of capital». in Handbook for Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, edited by John G. Richardson, 241–58. New York: Greenwood. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1996. State Nobility - Elite Schools in the Field of Power. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bühlmann, Felix, Thomas David, og André Mach. 2013. «Cosmopolitan Capi-tal and the Internationalization of the Field of Business Elites: Evidence from the Swiss Case». Cultural Sociology 7 (2): 211–29. Cappelli, Peter, og Monika Hamori. 2005. «The new road to the top». Harvard Business Review: 25-32. Chase-Dunn, Christopher, Yukio Kawano, og Benjamin D. Brewer. 2000. «Trade Globalization since 1795: Waves of Integration in the World-System». American Sociological Review 65 (1): 77–95. Denord, François, Paul Lagneau-Ymonet, og Sylvain Thine. 2011. «Le champ du pouvoir en France». Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 190: 24–57. Denord, François, Johs. Hjellbrekke, Olav Korsnes, Frédéric Lebaron, og Bri-gitte Le Roux. 2011. «Social capital in the field of power: the case of Norway». The Sociological Review 59 (1): 86–108. Ellersgaard, Christoph Houman. 2015. «Elites in Denmark: Power Elites and Ruling Classes in a Welfare State». Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Sociology, University of Copenhagen, 2015 Ellersgaard, Christoph Houman, og Anton Grau Larsen. 2015. «Data Exchange Network: The Danish Elite Network». Connections 35 (1). Hartmann, Michael. 2000. «Class–specific habitus and the social reproduction of the business elite in Germany and France». The Sociological Review 48 (2): 241–62. Hartmann, Michael. 2010 «Elites and Power Structure». in Handbook of Euro-pean Societies, edited by Stefan Immerfall og Göran Therborn, 291–323. New York: Springer. Larsen, Anton Grau. 2015. «Elites in Denmark: Identifying the elite». Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Sociology, University of Copenhagen. Mills, Charles Wright. 1956. The Power Elite. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Weenink, D. 2008. «Cosmopolitanism as a Form of Capital: Parents Preparing their Children for a Globalizing World». Sociology 42 (6): 1089–1106.

ABSTRACT. This paper investigates the employment pathways of men and women in Australia and profiles the characteristics of individuals who are at risk of disadvantage defined by unstable employment histories and frequent transitions into unemployment. The paper focuses on the transitions of respondents, aged 15-64 years, between different employment states over a span of 13 years (2001-2013) using panel data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey. To describe employment trajectories and to analyse the likelihood of transition from one employment state to another, we will rely on sequence analysis and two probabilistic models that might account for state dependence: dynamic multinomial logit random effects models and Markov models. Sequence analysis was used to identify typology of employment pathways and the associated sociodemographic characteristics and intergenerational links. The preliminary results confirm the presence of gender differences in employment. Women are more likely to be employed part time or not in the labour force while men are more likely to experience stable employment trajectories of full time work. Women also experience a slightly higher proportion of employment transitions. Among the sociodemographic and background factors considered, mature age workers, those with health problems and less educated parents, in particular father-son and mother-daughter links, are mainly at risk of experiencing unstable employment pathways.

ABSTRACT. Based on latent transition approach we investigate evolution of debt possession patterns in Poland. We obtain interteporally comparable segments of debt holders and show highly significant role of auto-regressive and life-cycle factors in shaping transitions between the segments. With data from three waves (2011 – 2015) and over 36,000 responses from the biennial panel study Polish households – Social Diagnosis - we show that: (1) transition probabilities from any of the indebted states to any other indebted state are higher than transition probabilities to non-active state; (2) households located in a given segment are most likely to remain in the segment, if not for oth-er factors; (3) transitions between segments are shaped by socio-economic covariates - age of household head, income and number of household members; (4) their role differs very considerably be-tween the segments showing that different socio-economic traits shape the evolution of segments; (5) probabilities of mortgage debt, debt for durables or renovation are positively related to income and in line with life cycle predictions, which indicates the role of long term factors in their acquisition; (6) consumption debt is less age related and in some groups also inversely related to income, which shows its short term dependence. The results of the study indicate also that (1) relationship between debt and income depends on relative preva-lence of segments on the market and (2) that influence of life-cycle factors can be missing at the aggregate level if mortgage debt does not dominate.

ABSTRACT. In a 29-year study of 6203 individuals with ages ranging 41–96 years at initial assessment, we evaluated the relative and combined influence of 65 mortality risk factors—which included socio-demographic variables, lifestyle attributes, medical indices, and multiple cognitive abilities. Analytical methods included multiple imputation (for missing data), longitudinal factor and latent growth models, random forest survival analysis (i.e., a data mining approach), and Cox proportional hazards survival analysis. Reductions in mortality risk were most associated with higher self-rated health, being female, fewer years smoking, and smaller life span decrements in processing speed. Thus, two psychological variables—subjective health status and processing speed—were among the top survival predictors. We suggest that these psychological attributes, unlike more narrowly defined risk factors, are indicative of (and influenced by) a broad range of health-related behaviors and characteristics. Information about these attributes can be obtained with relatively little effort or cost and—given the tractability of these measures in different cultural contexts—may prove expedient for prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of conditions related to increased mortality risk in diverse human populations.

ABSTRACT. We propose a phase-type model to analyze the duration of non-conjugal cohabit-ing unions. This model is a compartment model with two competing events: the marriage with the partner and the separation of the couple. We suppose that a non-marital union can be characterized by two hidden phases. The first begins at the start of the union and at each moment, people have the possibility to move from this first phase to the second phase during which hazard rates of marriage and of separation differ from the first phase. Investigations on data from the Brit-ish 1958 National Child Study and the 1970 British National Study show that the proposed model fits well with data about the first cohabiting union of interviewed people. Results show that processes of marriage and separation differed between the two cohorts.