Title: Visibility of minorities in social networks,
Abstract: Homophily can put minority groups at a disadvantage by restricting their
ability to establish links with people from a majority group. This can limit
the overall visibility of minorities in the network. Building on a
Barabási-Albert model variation with groups and homophily, we show how the
visibility of minority groups in social networks is a function of (i) their
relative group size and (ii) the presence or absence of homophilic behavior. We
provide an analytical solution for this problem and demonstrate the existence
of asymmetric behavior. Finally, we study the visibility of minority groups in
examples of real-world social networks: sexual contacts, scientific
collaboration, and scientific citation. Our work presents a foundation for
assessing the visibility of minority groups in social networks in which
homophilic or heterophilic behaviour is present.