94
tudes. Therefore, it is important to improve our knowledge on the bi-
directionality of this relationship between attitudes and networks.
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.
Notes
- For instance, for each respondent, the salience of kinship ties is calculated
by the following ratio: number of kin alters cited/total number of alters
(that is, network size). - This category includes female friends and female neighbours.
- This category includes male friends and male neighbours.
- For each alter, we computed the ratio between the duration of the rela-
tionship with ego and the age of ego [(Ego’s age – Age of ego when he/she
met alter)/Ego’s age]. Therefore, we created four categories that represent
time shared in years in ego’s life: (1) “very recent acquaintance”: Alters
who shared less than 25% of ego’s life; (2) “recent acquaintance”: alters
who shared 26–50% of ego’s life; (3) “old acquaintance”: alters who shared
51–75% of ego’s life; and (4) “very old acquaintance”: alters who shared
76–100% of ego’s life. Finally, we calculated for each respondent, the pro-
portion of alters who are very recent acquaintances, recent acquaintances,
old acquaintances, and very old acquaintances. Exceptionally in this case,
the average proportions are displayed in percentages. - The level of education was recoded in three categories: low (no formal
education, pre–primary education, primary education); medium (lower
secondary, upper secondary, post–secondary non–tertiary education);
high (first and second stages of tertiary education).
R. Gouveia et al.