Families and Personal Networks An International Comparative Perspective

© The Author(s) 2018 19
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_2

2

Contextualising Personal Networks

Across Birth Cohorts and Countries

Vasco Ramos, Vida Česnuitytė, Karin Wall,

and Dominique Joye

Introduction

Personal networks are best understood within the broader contexts in
which they exist and evolve over time. Our analysis of personal networks
in this book therefore starts with the description of multidimensional
contexts of countries and birth cohorts. In this chapter we discuss the
major macro-level features of Portugal, Switzerland, and Lithuania and
some of the structural changes that these countries went through from
1950 up to the present. Our look at these societies will emphasise how

V. Ramos (*) • K. Wall
Institute of Social Sciences (ICS), University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

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

D. Joye
Life Course and Social Inequality Research Centre, University of Lausanne,
Lausanne, Switzerland