Families and Personal Networks An International Comparative Perspective

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not significant, they tend to follow the same trends in relation to the
male association with Couple and Restricted nuclear networks and the
female association with No-family.
The impact of birth cohort is more significant than gender and reveals
important life stage effects which may also be seen to intertwine with
country and gender effects (χ^2  = 390.73, p < 0.001). The Couple type of
network, which is relevant both at the beginning of conjugal life in the
younger cohort and in the empty nest stage for couples belonging to the
older cohort, is transversal to the two cohorts. In contrast, it is individu-
als in the younger cohort who are more likely to be associated with
Friendship-origin (41.1% against 18.3% among the oldest cohort) and
Sibling (14.5% against 9.9% among the oldest cohort) types of networks
while individuals in the older cohort, who at this life stage often have
children and sometimes grandchildren, are more likely to have Beanpole
(15.7% against 0.2% among the youngest cohort) and different types of
nuclear networks focusing on couples with children. The older cohort is
also strongly associated with the No-family pattern (8.8% against 3.8%
among the youngest cohort): a possible explanation for the latter is that

Table 4.7 Distribution of as-family networks by gender within each country (%)

Portugal Switzerland Lithuania

Men Women Total Men WomenTotal Men WomenTotal

Couple 5.5 3.0 4.0 21.2 11.4 16.2 10.6 5.2 7.7

Friendship-

origin

36.4 36.6 36.5 32.9 35.1 34.0 21.6 16.5 18.9

No-family 2.4 3.0 2.8 6.0 9.3 7.7 5.1 12.3 8.9

Siblings 9.4 13.2 11.7 8.4 18.1 13.4 11.3 12.3 11.8

Beanpole-

down

11.1 10.3 10.6 1.4 1.8 1.6 7.9 11.9 10.1

Nuclear-

daughter

14.9 14.3 14.6 10.6 10.9 10.7 16.1 18.8 17.5

Nuclear-son 13.5 15.9 14.9 14.9 11.1 13.0 20.3 16.5 18.3

Restricted

nuclear

6.7 3.7 4.9 4.6 2.3 3.4 7.1 6.7 6.9

Total 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100
χ^2 13.43 32.71 33.63
Notes: ***p < 0.001; the numbers in bold correspond to the overrepresented
types of as-family networks

Changing Meanings of Family in Personal Relationships...