37families and individuals. At least indirectly, an expenditure level of 16.2%
(as a percentage of GDP in 2011) proves the lack of social protection in
Lithuania.
In Portugal, expenditure on social protection amounts to 24.2% of
GDP (2011), a figure closer to that of Switzerland. Nevertheless, the
unemployment rate in Portugal has been high over the last decade
(12.9% in 2011), meaning that a significant portion of social expendi-
ture is directed towards unemployment benefits and direct support to
families.
Differences in social development between Portugal, Switzerland,
and Lithuania create an interesting scenario for testing whether the
hypothesis of a bounded pluralisation of personal networks holds true.
We believe that because of differences in levels of wealth, value orienta-
tion, and opportunity structures, stemming from each country’s
national history, some societies are more likely to promote bounded
personal networks, based on kinship ties and localism, while others are
more likely to promote more diverse networks, based on a combination
of different principles (kinship, affinity, friendship, generational prox-
imity, etc.).
In some social settings, the family still plays an important role as a
major mediator of social integration and social control. Individuals
depend on family and kinship members to meet their economic and
social needs. Accordingly, they associate their identity with family and
develop we social identification in kinship-based groups (Elias and
Scotson 1994 ). In this scenario, the family is the main, if not the only,
provider of help and protection for individuals in the case of poverty or
disability, the major institution responsible for taking care of their needs
as well as for normatively framing their behaviours. In contrast, following
Elias’s definition, in societies with a greater level of social development,
there is an extension and greater articulation of the chains of interdepen-
dencies among individuals. In this case, social constraints and opportuni-
ties stemming from welfare institutions or the market directly engage the
individual rather than being mediated by the family as a group (Beck and
Beck-Gernsheim 2002 ). The family thus loses its instrumental prepon-
derance in those nations, with likely consequences for the personal net-
works of their residents (Elias and Scotson 1994 ).
Contextualising Personal Networks Across Birth Cohorts...