Families and Personal Networks An International Comparative Perspective

© The Author(s) 2018 167
K. Wall et al. (eds.), Families and Personal Networks, Palgrave Macmillan Studies in
Family and Intimate Life, https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95263-2_6

6

Understanding Personal Networks

as Social Capital

Eric D. Widmer, Rita Gouveia, Gaëlle Aeby,

and Vida Česnuitytė

Introduction

Sociological research has emphasised the importance of family and per-
sonal relationships as social capital (Furstenberg and Hughes 1995 ;
Furstenberg and Kaplan 2004 ; Widmer 2006 , 2016 ). In this chapter,
we first consider the association between social capital created by per-
sonal networks and countries. Next, we turn to see how factors such as

E.D. Widmer (*)
Department of Sociology, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland

R. Gouveia
Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

G. Aeby
Life Course and Inequality Research Centre, University of Lausanne,
Lausanne, Switzerland

V. Česnuitytė
Sociological Research Laboratory, Mykolas Romeris University,
Vilnius, Lithuania