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Linking Family Trajectories and Personal Networks

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Families and Personal Networks

Part of the book series: Palgrave Macmillan Studies in Family and Intimate Life ((PSFL))

Abstract

The share of family and non-family ties in personal networks varies not only across the life course following major transitions and events but also according to the type of welfare state in which individual lives unfold. Using network and sequence analyses, this chapter investigates for two birth cohorts (1950–1955 and 1970–1975) how the composition of personal networks is influenced by past co-residence trajectories (from 1990 to 2010) in three European countries (Switzerland, Portugal, and Lithuania). The resulting co-residence trajectories capture a great variety of situations characterized by conjugal status as well as the presence and age of children. Network analyses reveal a focus on the nuclear family of procreation, although highlighting national differences regarding the inclusion of extended kin and non-kin.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    More precisely within the birth cohort 1970–1975 the window ranges from age 15 to 35 to age 20 to 40 respectively for the youngest and the oldest individuals belonging to it. The same reasoning applies to the cohort 1950–1955.

  2. 2.

    The number of types was chosen according to the high value of the silhouette index (Studer 2013) and the semantic value of the corresponding typology (Lapointe and Legendre 1994). We chose a relatively high number of clusters in order to adequately capture the diversity of the life trajectories followed by the individuals in our population .

  3. 3.

    http://data.worldbank.org/indicator /SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS

  4. 4.

    A change in divorce regulation in Switzerland produced a local, artefactual drop in divorce frequency in Switzerland in 2000 (https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/en/home /statistics /population /marriages-partnerships-divorces/divortiality.assetdetail.261933.html)

  5. 5.

    http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics -explained/index.php/Marriage_and_divorce _statistics

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Acknowledgement

The authors of the chapter wish to acknowledge sponsors that made it possible to carry out this investigation, the results of which are presented in the chapter. In Switzerland , the research was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation and the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research LIVES Overcoming Vulnerability: Life-Course Perspectives. In Portugal , the research was carried out within the national survey , “Family Trajectories and Social Networks”, coordinated by Professor K. Wall from the Institute of Social Sciences (ICS) from the University of Lisbon. In Lithuania , the research was carried out based on data collected within the research project , “Trajectories of Family Models and Personal Networks: Intergenerational Perspective”, coordinated by V. Kanopiené from Mykolas Romeris University (Lithuania) and funded by Research Council of Lithuania.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Life Course and Inequality Research Centre, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Jacques-Antoine Gauthier & Gaëlle Aeby

  2. Institute of Social Sciences (ICS), University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

    Vasco Ramos

  3. Sociological Research Laboratory, Mykolas Romeris University, Vilnius, Lithuania

    Vida Česnuitytè

Authors
  1. Jacques-Antoine Gauthier
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  2. Gaëlle Aeby
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  3. Vasco Ramos
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  4. Vida Česnuitytè
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

    Karin Wall

  2. University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland

    Eric D. Widmer

  3. University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Jacques–Antoine Gauthier

  4. Mykolas Romeris University, Vilnius, Lithuania

    Vida Česnuitytė

  5. Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Switzerland

    Rita Gouveia

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Gauthier, JA., Aeby, G., Ramos, V., Česnuitytè, V. (2018). Linking Family Trajectories and Personal Networks. In: Wall, K., Widmer, E., Gauthier, J., Česnuitytė, V., Gouveia, R. (eds) Families and Personal Networks . Palgrave Macmillan Studies in Family and Intimate Life. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95263-2_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95263-2_7

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