Network of relatives. Composition and changes throughout the life course

Network of relatives. Composition and changes throughout the life course.

Demographic change, more specifically “population ageing”, has spurred a renewed interest in “solidarity” ─ cf. the title of the Green Paper (2009) of the European Commission, “Intergenerational solidarity: key to responding to demographic ageing.”
According to Parsons (1968), the primary unit of solidarity is the family. The interrelationships of family members reveal the three basic forms of solidarity: affectional solidarity, associational solidarity; and consensus solidarity.
The analysis gives a description of the composition of the network of family members and the changes therein through the life course. The analysis is based on the data of the Belgian GGP survey of around 2010.
The results reveal that, overall, the number of family members is low. Moreover, the composition of the network and the number of family members greatly varies with age. The results also reveal differences between men and women and the existence of cultural difference, namely differences in the composition of reconstituted families. Moreover, the increased importance in reconstituted families raises the question of the need for new forms of solidarity between step-parents and step-children.