Families and Personal Networks An International Comparative Perspective

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Thus we obtained a solution with nine personal configurations in order
of importance (see Fig. 5.1): Narrow-nuclear (20.2%), Parents (14.3%),
Friendship (11.1%), Extended conjugal (11.0%), Standard-nuclear
(10.8%), Sibling-oriented (9.3%), Work-oriented (8.9%), Beanpole
(6.9%), Mixed (5.2%), and Alone (2.2%). The labels are chosen to reflect
the standpoint of the focal person, that is, the respondents in relation to
the members of their configurations. Labels represent the main orienta-
tion of the configurations, but do not exclude the presence of other ties.
For instance, partners are mentioned by a large majority of respondents
and are thus present in a majority of configurations regardless of their
other elements.
Table 5.1 presents the average number of citations for each tie by per-
sonal configuration. Two small-sized configurations are based on the
nuclear family (i.e., partners and children), one larger one including
more children (size 3.2) and with a greater share of daughters (1.79), and
the other smaller one including fewer children (size 2.5) and with a
greater share of sons (1.09). We name the first one the Standard-nuclear
configuration and the second the Narrow-nuclear configuration. These
configurations account for one-third of the sample. Parent configura-
tions are centred on parents (fathers 0.71 and mothers 0.94) and are

Extended

conjugal, 11.0

Beanpole, 6.9

Alone, 2.2

Work, 8.9

Standard–

nuclear, 10.8

Parents, 14.3 Siblings, 9.3

Narrow–

nuclear, 20.2

Mixed, 5.2

Friendship, 11.1

Fig. 5.1 Main types of personal configurations (% of each cluster in total sample,
N = 2835)

G. Aeby et al.