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dren (4.5% in Portugal; 4% in Lithuania) may be due to the earlier tran-
sition to parenthood/grandparenthood in the older birth cohort in
Portugal and Lithuania.
Finally, within the categories of non-kin ties, an interesting finding is
the inclusion of some friends, female rather than male, that are perceived
as family both in Portugal and Switzerland (6.3% and 6.4%, respec-
tively); nevertheless, taking into account the high percentage of friends in
Swiss personal configurations, the number of friends imbued with family
meaning is very low. The other categories of non-kin ties, such as col-
leagues or acquaintances, have negligible values.
These findings indicate that the main categories of ties in personal and
family networks have some broad similarities, since they both include kin
and non-kin ties. However, bonds considered as-family are more strongly
linked to blood, alliance, and co-residence principles, with some signifi-
cant variations across countries, and it is crucial to understand these dif-
ferences more carefully. Compared to important personal relationships,
which categories of ties are less likely to be chosen or included as family
by respondents? What are the categories of ties that decrease when we ask
respondents to identify the close persons considered as family? In order
to address this issue, we will now focus on the percentage of respondents
citing each type of tie in both types of networks (Table 4.4). By compar-
ing the two columns in Table 4.4 for each country, we are able to capture
the differences in the selectivity of ties across the three countries.
Three important findings may be underlined. First, regarding the ele-
ments of the family of procreation (partner, children), we witness a
straightforward correspondence between the two columns as the percent-
age of respondents citing partners and children as important persons also
tend to perceive these network members as family. In Portugal and
Lithuania, parents and siblings identified as important close persons are
also automatically considered as family. However, in Switzerland, we see
a small but significant drop in the percentage of respondents who consider
their mother and father as family (−3.5% for the father and −5.0% for
the mother), as well as in the percentage of respondents who consider
brothers and sisters as family (−2.1% for brothers −2.9% for sisters) or
even children (−4.3% for daughters). This seems to indicate a lower nor-
mative dependency, in Switzerland, on biological ties associated with the
K. Wall et al.