Families and Personal Networks An International Comparative Perspective

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salient, alongside ex-partners and co-workers. Another distinctive charac-
teristic is the lower share of grandchildren in this country in comparison
with Portugal and Lithuania. Particularly remarkable in Portuguese net-
works, we found a high integration of parents-in-law, children-in-law,
and siblings-in-law, showing the strength of the alliance principle in the
construction of relational closeness in this country.

Shared Co-residence History

Co-residence is a well-known mechanism of relational proximity as indi-
viduals who share the same household are likely to develop strong inter-
dependencies. Moreover, not only the individuals who are currently part
of the household are likely to be considered as important, but also those
who shared the same household with ego in the past (see Chap. 7 on the
impact of co-residence trajectories on personal networks). Therefore, we
asked individuals if they have ever lived with each alter at some point of
his/her life. Figure 3.2 shows the proportion of co-resident and non-co-
resident alters by network in the three countries.
In terms of representativeness of present or past co-resident and non-
co- resident alters, all the countries significantly differ from each other
(F = 90.46; p < 0.001). Lithuania shows the highest proportion of present
or past co-resident alters (M = 0.84), followed by Portugal (M = 0.70) and

0.70 0.65 0.84

0.30 0.35

0.16

PortugalSwitzerland Lithuania

Non co–resident

Co–resident

Fig. 3.2 Average proportion of present and past co-resident and non-co-resident
alters in personal networks by country (%, N = 2774)

R. Gouveia et al.