The Strength of Age Homophily

Both external and intrinsic factors play a role in the occurrence of homophily among individuals. Intrinsic characteristics include age, gender, and race, while external opportunities may be school, the workplace, or even volunteer groups. I'd like to argue, however, that age plays one of the stronger roles in the happenings of homophily.

For one, age gives way to a majority of similar social opportunities for homophily. School is one significant example of this. Most students in school are of the same age. Therefore they share such commonalities as courses, homework, school athletics, etc. Furthermore, age links people together in work environments as well. For example, this past summer I worked at Raytheon with engineers who were often two generations older than myself. Yet, I chose to eat lunch and socialize with Union workers that were the same age as me.

Sharing a common age also guarantees that individuals will have pop culture trends and historical events to talk about. For instance, I cannot converse with my mother about new music artists Lil Jon or Kesha because she did not grow up with this genre of music and has no interest in listening to these artists. However, my brother and I share this type of music all the time. In a historical sense, I would not understand what life was like during the Vietnam war if my grandfather chose to discuss this with me.

Overall I believe that closeness in age provides individuals with similar social opportunities and easier conversation that leads to more frequent occurrences of homophily.