Mark Tranmer

University of Glasgow | UofG · School of Social & Political Sciences

Keywords: animal social behaviour event data food sharing jackdaw longitudinal network reciprocity social network analysis temporal network analysis Social dynamics are of fundamental importance in animal societies. Studies on nonhuman animal social systems often aggregate social interaction event data into a single network within a particular time...

The social network literature on network dependences has largely ignored other sources of dependence, such as the school that a student attends, or the area in which an individual lives. The multilevel modelling literature on school and area dependences has, in turn, largely ignored social networks. To bridge this divide, a multiple-membership mult...

Because of the inherent multilevel nature of census data, it is often appropriate to use multilevel models to investigate relationships between census variables. For a local population, the data available from the census allow a three-level nested model to be assumed, with an individual level (level 1), an enumeration district (ED) level (level 2),...

This article aims to add a regional science perspective and a geographical dimension to our understanding of substantive questions regarding self-reported happiness and well-being through the specification and use of multilevel models. Multilevel models are used with data from the British Household Panel Survey and the Census of UK population to as...

Immigrant flows to Spain have increased greatly in the last decade, but little is known about the composition and role of their personal support networks. Our research questions are: (1) Which factors are associated with ties between immigrants and ‘Spaniards’ (the more settled resident Spanish population), compared with immigrants and non-Spaniard...

Multilevel models are often used to account for the hierarchical structure of social data and the inherent dependencies to produce estimates of regression coefficients, variance components associated with each level, and accurate standard errors. Social network analysis is another important approach to analysing complex data that incoproate the soc...

Analyzing two-mode networks linking actors to events they attend may help to uncover the structure and evolution of social networks. This classic social network insight is particularly valuable in the analysis of data extracted from contact diaries where contact events produce-and at the same time are the product of relations among participants. Co...

Multilevel models are increasingly used in sociology and other social sciences to analyze variation of tie outcomes in egocentrically sampled network data, particularly in studies of social support. Existing research assumes that the personal networks in the data do not overlap (i.e., they do not have actors in common), which makes standard hierarc...

We explain how a type of multilevel model called a Multiple Membership Multiple Classification (MMMC) model can be used to investigate multilevel network dependencies for a nodal dependent variable at the lowest level of such a structure. In particular, the MMMC model allows us to estimate the relative share of variation in the dependent variable a...

Objectives: The reasons for ethnic differences in women’s mental health service use in England remain unclear. The aims of this study were to ascertain: ethnic differences in women’s usage of mental health services, if social networks are independently associated with service use, and if the association between women’s social networks and service u...

Pakistani women in the UK are an at-risk group with high levels of mental health problems, but low levels of mental health service use. However, the rates of service use for Pakistani women are unclear, partly because research with South Asian women has been incorrectly generalised to Pakistani women. Further, this research has been largely underta...

We present a Multiple Membership Multiple Classification (MMMC) model for analysing variation in the performance of organizational sub-units embedded in a multilevel network. The model postulates that the performance of organizational sub-units varies across network levels defined in terms of: (i) direct relations between organizational sub-units;...

In this paper, we propose to jointly model the conditional mean and variance components associated with the response in multilevel data. We set a generalized linear mixed model (GLMM) for the mean and a generalized linear model (GLM) for the variance components. The variable selection method of our choice is the smoothly clipped absolute deviation...

This study examines the extent to which variation in violent behaviour can be explained by variation in drinking patterns in late adolescence and early adulthood using panel data of regular drinkers aged between 16 and 29 in England and Wales. Multilevel models explore individuals’ propensity to commit assault controlling for their drinking behavio...

We propose to extend the use of penalized likelihood variable selection to hierarchical generalized linear models (HGLMs) for jointly modelling the mean and variance structures. We assume a two-level hierarchical data structure, with subjects nested within groups. A generalized linear mixed model (GLMM) is fitted for the mean, with a structured dis...

Citizens are increasingly being encouraged to take on new voluntary roles and responsibilities, such as, for example, looking after their local area and being involved in decision making. This move towards responsible citizenship is linked to the changing role of government, and the scaling down of the public services provided by the post war welfa...

In this article we examine generalised helping and specifically the importance people attach to helping other people, the extent to which they help in practice and their perceptions of how much people living locally help each other. We consider the extent to which the value of help is associated with other civic engagement activities such as, for e...

Many variables have within group homogeneity (similarity of values for the individual units that comprise the groups). Measures of within group homogeneity are useful for the sample design and statistical analysis of datasets for populations that contain groups, such as individuals in geographical areas. Homogeneity measures can easily be defined f...

Statistics calculated using the means of geographic areas can differ substantially from the corresponding statistics based on data from individuals. Analysts who base their conclusions about individual-level relationships on area-level analyses run the risk of committing the ecological fallacy. Statistical models are proposed that capture the essen...

A classification of census enumeration districts has recently been added to the 1991 British Census 2% Sample of Anonymised Records (SAR). Through the use of multilevel modeling techniques, the area classification information on the SAR is used to investigate geographical differences in unemployment. Previous research has indicated that where a per...

This paper aims to enhance our understanding of substantive questions regarding self-reported happiness and well-being through the specification and use of multi-level models. To date, there have been numerous quantitative research studies of the happiness of individuals, based on single-level regression models, where typically a happiness index is...

The turnout of 59.4 per cent at the 2001 general election was the lowest since 1918. It has been widely assumed that ethnic or religious minority electors are less likely to vote in general elections than white electors. Furthermore, electoral participation is regarded as both an indicator of the integration of minority communities and the quality...

Turnout at general elections across Europe is in decline as it is in other established democracies. A particular cause for concern is that young people are less likely to participate than older voters. Evidence presented in this article, based on national election results and the 2002–2003 European Social Survey, shows the overall turnout rate for...

Ecological analysis involves analysing aggregate data for groups of individuals to make inferences about relationships at the individual level. Often the results of such analyses give badly biased estimates. This paper will consider the sources of bias in linear regression analysis using aggregate data. The role of variation of the individual level...

Download this and other research reports free from www.dwp.gov.uk/asd/ asd5/rrs-index.asp This report measures the national and local labour market circumstances of ethnic minority populations, using data from the 1991 and 2001 Census. It also measures 'ethnic penalties' – the inequalities between people of the same age, qualifications and other ch...

The combination of detailed sample data with less detailed but fully enumerated marginal subtotals is the focus of a wide range of research. In this article we advocate careful modeling of sample data, followed by Iterative Proportional Fitting (IPF). The modeling aims to estimate accurately the interaction or odds ratios of complex tables, which i...

Census data are available in aggregate form for local areas and, through the samples of anonymized records (SARs), as samples of microdata for households and individuals. In 1991 there were two SAR files: a household file and an individual file. These have a high degree of detail on the census variables but little geographical detail, a situation t...

Introduction and OverviewAggregate and Survey Data AvailabilityBias and Variance of Variance Component Estimators Based on Aggregate and Survey DataSimulation StudiesUsing Auxiliary Variables to Reduce Aggregation EffectsConclusions Acknowledgements

We have already indicated that census data were used since the early nineteenth century to determine the structure of the populations studied, at a given moment. Owing to their completeness, they could be used—in theory—to study not only regional or national populations but also local populations. The structures studied could also be very complex,...

Holdsworth C., Voas D. and Tranmer M. (2002) Leaving home in Spain: when, where and why?, Reg. Studies 36, 989-1004. Spanish transitions out of the parental home are characterized by older ages of leaving and a close association between leaving home and partnership formation, compared to countries in northern Europe. Yet throughout Spain we find im...

This paper reviews the automated zone-design procedures adopted for the creation of 2001 Census output geography in the United Kingdom. A microsimulation approach is used for the creation of household records to populate actual postcode and enumeration district boundaries, and a series of output area design scenarios are applied to these data, allo...

"The authors show how data from the 2% Sample of Anonymised Records (SAR) can be combined with data from the Small Area Statistics (SAS) database to investigate the causes of the ecological fallacy in an Enumeration District (ED) level analysis. A range of census variables are examined in three ¿SAR districts'...in England. Results of comparable an...

There have been major changes and developments in recent years in strategies for monitoring and evaluating schools. This paper is based on a survey of chief inspectors and describes the extent and variety of local education authority (LEA) approaches to the evaluation of schools during 1990/91. This was an important year because it immediately prec...

The increase in referrals to a new consultant psychiatrist within a teaching hospital was documented. During 1987/88 there were 279 consecutive referrals from physicians and surgeons (159 out-patients and 120 ward-consultation requests) which were compared with 184 consecutive GP referrals over the same period. Hospital referrals tended to be older...

Absence from school during the first year after starting major treatment for cancer or chronic or orthopaedic conditions was examined. Retrospective data were collected on 72 children and obtained from hospital records, school registers, and interviews with parents and teachers. Median initial absences caused by treatment were 91, 29-5, and 15 days...

Are individuals more strongly affected by job insecurity when economic conditions are worse? Combining data from the European Social Survey and Eurostat, this paper considers whether national economic conditions moderate the association between job insecurity and subjective well-being. The negative association between perceived job insecurity and i...