217critical life events such as divorce, as well as experiencing the effects of an
economic crisis, may disrupt the stability of an individual’s trajectory and
hence challenge his or her sociability. When welfare states provide protec-
tion, individuals can keep their network members as a source of emo-
tional support, but when this protection comes short, network members
may be needed for instrumental support, such as living together in com-
mon households to pool resources far beyond the transition to adult-
hood. Stability, ruptures, following stages and transitions in family
trajectories are at the core of the construction of individuals’ sociability,
especially those related to partnering and parenthood, and further
research should continue to develop innovative designs to encompass the
multiple processes at stake.
Acknowledgement The authors of the chapter wish to acknowledge sponsors
that made it possible to carry out this investigation, the results of which are
presented in the chapter. In Switzerland, the research was supported by the Swiss
National Science Foundation and the Swiss National Centre of Competence in
Research LIVES Overcoming Vulnerability: Life-Course Perspectives. In
Portugal, the research was carried out within the national survey, “Family
Trajectories and Social Networks”, coordinated by Professor K. Wall from the
Institute of Social Sciences (ICS) from the University of Lisbon. In Lithuania,
the research was carried out based on data collected within the research project,
“Trajectories of Family Models and Personal Networks: Intergenerational
Perspective”, coordinated by V. Kanopiené from Mykolas Romeris University
(Lithuania) and funded by Research Council of Lithuania.
Notes
- More precisely within the birth cohort 1970–1975 the window ranges
from age 15 to 35 to age 20 to 40 respectively for the youngest and the
oldest individuals belonging to it. The same reasoning applies to the
cohort 1950–1955. - The number of types was chosen according to the high value of the silhou-
ette index (Studer 2013 ) and the semantic value of the corresponding
typology (Lapointe and Legendre 1994 ). We chose a relatively high num-
ber of clusters in order to adequately capture the diversity of the life tra-
jectories followed by the individuals in our population.
Linking Family Trajectories and Personal Networks