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the largest proportional increase from one cohort to the other, a process
undoubtedly related to the expansion of higher education since the late
1980s. Moreover, in the older cohort, there are also higher proportions of
craft and related trades workers and elementary workers, whereas plant
and machine operators and assemblers predominate in the younger
cohort.
In sum, higher educational levels in Lithuania and Switzerland suggest
that a significant share of the population can widen their personal net-
works throughout their lives: they spend time with classmates, teachers,
and other individuals beyond their kin, who are probably more diverse
in terms of place of origin, life experience, worldviews, etc. In other
words, the interdependencies of individuals with a higher educational
degree are more complex and varied, with likely consequences for their
personal networks. Lower educational levels will more likely be associ-
ated with personal networks mainly formed around kinship and mem-
bership of the local community, because they are embedded in less
complex and less far-reaching chains of interdependencies. Longer
involvement in education is associated with postponement of marriage
and childbearing, because the alternatives and constraints provided or
imposed by interdependencies are greater. These transitions are of para-
mount importance for the demographic reservoir of individuals and thus
for the pool of relatives available for inclusion in personal networks. We
thus expect greater diversity within personal networks, in terms of non-
kin members, in Lithuania and Switzerland than in Portugal, especially
for the older generation.
However, education is not the only instance where individuals form
more complex chains of interdependencies. For example, education and
participation in the labour market are interdependent. Correspondingly,
labour market participation, efforts to reconcile work with family obliga-
tions, migration, and other factors bring forward new sets of relations.
Additionally, fewer years in education probably means more years spent
in the labour market and either in the family of orientation or the family
of procreation. At another level, Welfare States may also influence how
personal networks are formed: for example, high levels of female employ-
ment and insufficient childcare coverage may involve greater recourse to
family networks.
V. Ramos et al.