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Portuguese networks are more gender-balanced as they show the lowest
difference between male and female presence in personal networks. This
gender balance may reflect a greater presence of men in family life,
which has been reinforced in family policies over the last decade in this
country. However, with the exception of Switzerland, the cross-gender
principle preference prevails. In the three countries, men always have
more female alters than women; but when we turn to women’s net-
works, Switzerland shows a strong homophilous pattern for women.
While Portuguese and Lithuanian women have more male alters than
men do, in Switzerland women’s networks show the same proportion of
female alters compared to men’s networks. This same-gender preference
in Switzerland may be related to the low participation of women in the
labour market, particularly after the birth of the first child, which con-
tributes to the feminization of women’s interaction circles, a trend not
found in the other national contexts. Finally, education as a proxy of
social class represents a strong shaping factor of personal networks,
showing that the development of personal relationships is deeply embed-
ded in social stratification dynamics. For instance, more educated indi-
viduals have larger networks, thereby revealing a greater potential for
social capital (see Chap. 6 ). Moreover, those individuals also show a
lower proportion of kin and co-resident network members, meaning
that their circles of interaction are more diversified and spread over dif-
ferent households, increasing their access to alternative sources of
resources and information.
Another key finding is the role of normative context on individuals’
relational choices. The last four decades have witnessed changing norms
regarding family and gender roles, such as a decline in the normative
weight of the family, the democratization of gender relations, a deinsti-
tutionalization of marriage, the exercise of choice regarding parenthood,
the loss of children’s centrality in family life, and the recognition of more
diversified family arrangements. Interestingly, these trends have not been
assimilated with the same intensity and at the same pace in the three
countries and across different segments of society. Therefore, the way
individuals think about family life and gender roles has an impact on the
ways in which they develop their personal relationships and on the crite-
ria which they mobilize to consider someone as a meaningful other. For
R. Gouveia et al.