Tracking Societal Change: Descriptive Results

Our simulation framework lays out a chain of social mechanisms (Hedstrom & Swedberg, 1996), starting with demographics and living arrangements, where the focus is on the respective influence of non-material and material assets (also known as resources or capitals) on “living standard” (Savage, Warde, & Devine, 2005). The factors – what we call the outcomes – of specific interest are education (a non-material asset); employment, personal/household income, and welfare receipt (material assets); and household deprivation and housing tenure (proxies for living standard). Our base simulation, in effect, operationalises the interplay of these social mechanisms and provides a quantitative summation of their products (Orcutt, 1957).