Using optimal matching analysis in sociology: Cost setting and sociology of time

This paper is a reflection on the conditions required to use Optimal Matching Analysis (OMA) in sociology. The success of OMA in biology is not related to any supposed similarity of the method with biological processes but comes from setting costs in OMA in accordance with biological theory. As sequences in sociology are made of events and time, the determination of costs should be guided by sociological theories of time. After a discussion of the sociological meaning and consequences of costs, this paper comes back on the Dynamic Hamming Distance and the body of social theories of time (Durkheim, Elias, Bourdieu) from which it is derived as an example of how sociological theory can inform cost setting in using OMA in sociology

Two-Stage Optimal Matching Analysis of Workdays and Workweeks

We apply Optimal Matching (OM) at two stages for the analysis of workdays and workweeks using data from the UK 2000 Time Use Survey. We only employ substitutions but no insertion or deletion when calculating the distance matrix between sequences. The costs are defined according to the transitional frequencies of events at a given time. Our study demonstrates how OM can be adapted to the number of periodicities and theoretical concerns of the topic by adjusting its costs and parameters. There are 7 main types of workweeks in the UK and standard workweeks account for only 1 in 4 workweeks

Setting cost in Optimal Matching to uncover contemporaneous socio-temporal patterns

This article addresses the question of the effects of cost setting on the kind of temporal patterns optimal matching (OM) can uncover when applied to social science data. It is argued that the balance between indel (insertion and deletion) and substitution costs determines what kind of socio-temporal pattern can be brought to light. Insertion and deletion operations favor identically coded states irrespective of their locations whereas substitutions focus on contemporaneous similarities. The lower the ratio of substitution to indel costs, the closer OM is to the Hamming distance where only substitutions are used. The higher this ratio, the closer OM is to the Levenshtein II distance, which amounts to finding the longest common subsequence. When the timing of sequences is crucial, substitutions should be favored over indels and their costs should be carefully fixed. Ideally, substitution costs should vary with time to better take into account the timing of the sequences studied. As indels warp time, hence the timing of sequences, it is suggested to use only substitution operations with time-dependent costs inversely proportional to transition frequencies whenever the timing of sequences is central. This OM variant, coined dynamic Hamming matching, is applied to the question of the scheduling of paid work where timing is critical (1985 and 1999 French time use surveys, N = 7,908) along with three classical OM variants (Hamming and Levenshtein I and II). As expected, the two Hamming dissimilarity measures fare better to identify patterns of workday schedules, as measured by entropy, than the two Levenshtein ones

Time Use Surveys: a Review of their Aims, Methods, and Results

Time use surveys are distinguished by their use of a specific type of questionnaire, the daily activity diary, first developed in the Soviet Union in the 1920s, standardized in the framework of a multinational survey headed by Alexander Szalai in 1965–66, then generalized for use in a great number of countries. The diary allows for quantifying the duration of relatively noninstitutionalized activities such as household work and leisure activities. The main research results obtained with time use studies are presented as they relate to three main themes: debates on the leisure civilization, changes in work rhythms, and gender roles and the synchronizing of social time within the family

How the Working Week is Organized for Working Individuals and Couples: the Influence of Economic and Social Determinants

For the Time-Use survey conducted by Insee in 1999 data was gathered from seven-day diaries in which working people noted their working hours for one week. Different types of working weeks were categorized by applying a two-stage optimal matching method, firstly for working days, then for simplified weeks using day types. The days differ greatly according to socio-professional category, the type of job, sector, but also gender. Pronounced regularities also emerge at a weekly level. Generally speaking, the better ones position in the economic system, the more independent time-management one has and the more working weeks are standard or long. Meanwhile, less skilled workers have working weeks which are shorter on average, but have staggered and fragmented schedules and a very low degree of control over their working time. For couples less independent time-management leads to their work schedules becoming more desynchronized and this creates new inequalities between households.Time Use, Workweek, Optimal Matching, Couple, Desynchronization

Organisation du travail dans la semaine des individus et des couples actifs: le poids des déterminants économiques et sociaux

Le recueil d’un semainier dans lequel les personnes actives ont noté leurs heures de travail pendant une semaine lors de l’enquête Emploi du temps, menée par l’Insee en 1999, permet d’analyser le rythme hebdomadaire du travail en France au regard de la position sociale et des caractéristiques sociodémographiques, individuelles et familiales. Une typologie des semaines de travail est construite en appliquant en deux étapes une méthode d’appariement optimal, d’abord sur les jours travaillés, puis sur les semaines simplifiées à l’aide des types de journées. Les journées contenues dans les semainiers sont de cinq types : des journées de travail standard, décalées, longues, fragmentées et des journées de repos. Les journées apparaissent fortement différenciées selon la catégorie socioprofessionnelle, le type d’emploi, le secteur d’activité, mais aussi le genre. De fortes régularités apparaissent également à l’échelle de la semaine. Aux semaines standard, composées de journées de travail standard, s’opposent les longues semaines de travail faites de longues journées de travail, et les semaines décalées et fragmentées constituées respectivement de journées décalées et fragmentées. On retrouve dans l’organisation de la semaine la forte structuration exercée par la position des actifs en emploi dans le système économique, qui s’exerce également au niveau des journées. D’une manière générale, meilleure est la position dans le système économique, plus l’autonomie temporelle est grande et plus les semaines de travail sont standard, voire longues. Les salariés les moins qualifiés ont au contraire des semaines en moyenne plus courtes mais avec des horaires décalés et fragmentés et un très faible degré de contrôle de leur temps de travail. La plus faible autonomie temporelle de ces salariés entraîne au niveau du couple une plus forte désynchronisation des horaires de travail des deux conjoints et crée ainsi de nouvelles inégalités entre les ménages.For the Time-Use survey conducted by Insee in 1999 data was gathered from seven-day diaries in which working people noted their working hours for one week. This collection was used to analyze the weekly scheduling of work in France on the basis of social position and socio-demographic, individual and family characteristics. Different types of working weeks were categorized by applying a two-stage optimal matching method, firstly for working days, then for simplified weeks using day types. There are five types of days in the diaries: standard, staggered, long and fragmented working days, and rest days. The days differ greatly according to socio-professional category, the type of job, sector, but also gender. Pronounced regularities also emerge at a weekly level. Standard weeks, made up of standard working days, are set in contrast to working weeks made up of long working days, and staggered and fragmented weeks made up of staggered and fragmented days respectively. The position occupied by working people in the economic system has a marked effect on how the week is structured, as is also the case for individual days. Generally speaking, the better one’s position in the economic system, the more independent time-management one has and the more working weeks are standard or long. Meanwhile, less skilled workers have working weeks which are shorter on average, but have staggered and fragmented schedules and a very low degree of control over their working time. For couples less independent time-management leads to their work schedules becoming more desynchronized and this creates new inequalities between households. How the Working Week is Organized for Working Individuals and Couples: the Influence of Economic and Social Determinants

Family Formation Trajectories in Romania, the Russian Federation and France: Towards the Second Demographic Transition?

This study examines family formation trajectories as a manifestation of the second demographic transition (SDT) in three countries, comparing and contrasting two post-socialist countries (Romania and the Russian Federation) with France as benchmark country advanced in the SDT. By examining combined partnership and fertility sequences and transcending the mainly descriptive nature of trajectory-based studies, the current study expands our knowledge by including key explanatory factors, such as cohort, country, and educational level. Pooled data from the Gender and Generations Survey (N = 30,197) is used to engage in sequence, optimal matching (OM), cluster and multinomial logistic regression analysis. Post- Communist cohorts are significantly more likely to engage in long-term cohabitation, childbearing within cohabitation or lone parenthood. Educational level operates differently across countries, with the highly educated in Romania and the Russian Federation less likely to follow certain de-standardized paths. Non-marital cohabitation with children is associated with lower education in all countries. Strong differences emerge between the shape and stages of the SDT in Romania and Russia, with Russians having a higher probability to experience childbearing within cohabitation, opposed to Romanians who follow childless marriage patterns or adopt postponement and singlehood. The three countries differ in their advancement in the SDT and factors shaping partnering and childbearing choices. We conclude that although the SDT remains a useful construct, it needs to be supplemented with more nuanced contextual accounts of socio-economic conditions

Investigating scheduling of work: A two-stage optimal matching analysis of workdays and workweeks

We study the scheduling of work by using optimal matching analysis. We show that optimal matching can be adapted to the number of periodicities and theoretical concerns of the topic by adjusting its costs and parameters. Optimal matching is applied at two stages to define workdays and workweeks at the first and second stage respectively. There were five types of workdays and seven types of workweeks in the UK between 2000 and 2001. Standard workdays represented just over a half of workdays and standard workweeks constituted one in four workweeks. There were three types of part-time workweeks

Trajectoires d’entrée dans l’âge adulte et États-providence

Cet article présente une typologie des trajectoires d’entrée dans l’âge adulte dans vingt pays en Europe, réalisée à partir de l’enquête sociale européenne de 2006. Après une convergence en Europe du Nord et de l’Ouest au cours des Trente Glorieuses, le passage à l’âge adulte s’organise pour les jeunes générations autour de deux nouveaux modèles caractérisés par une autonomie assez précoce par rapport à la famille d’orientation et la formation d’une famille plus tardive. Le passage à l’âge adulte dans les pays du sud et de l’est de l’Europe reste profondément inscrit dans l’histoire de leurs systèmes familiaux. La décohabitation est tardive dans les pays méditerranéens en intervenant au moment de la mise en couple. La tradition de la famille élargie persiste dans la plupart des pays de l’Est

Gender and time allocation of cohabiting and married women and men in France, Italy, and the United States

Background: Women, who generally do more unpaid and less paid work than men, have greater incentives to stay in marriages than cohabiting unions, which generally carry fewer legal protections for individuals that wish to dissolve their relationship. The extent to which cohabitation is institutionalized, however, is a matter of policy and varies substantially by country. The gender gap in paid and unpaid work between married and cohabiting individuals should be larger in countries where cohabitation is less institutionalized and where those in cohabiting relationships have relatively fewer legal protections should the relationship dissolve, yet few studies have explored this variation. Objective: Using time diary data from France, Italy, and the United States, we assess the time men and women devote to paid and unpaid work in cohabiting and married couples. These three countries provide a useful diversity in marital regimes for examining these expectations: France, where cohabitation is most “marriage like” and where partnerships can be registered and carry legal rights; the United States, where cohabitation is common but is short-lived and unstable and where legal protections vary across states; and Italy, where cohabitation is not common and where such unions are not legally acknowledged and less socially approved than in either France or the United States. Results: Cohabitating men’s and women’s time allocated to market and nonmarket work is generally more similar than married men and women. Our expectations about country differences are only partially borne out by the findings. Greater gender differences in the time allocated to market and nonmarket work are found in Italy relative to either France or the U.S