Kinship and social networks in modern societies: a cross-cultural comparison among seven nations

Abstract

This paper examines social networks in cross-national comparison, especially the assumption that in modern societies kin ties are loosening while non-kin ties are gaining importance in people's social networks. This assumption can be held only for the Northwest-European cultural area and the New World-countries descending from them. Americans and Australians have gone further in the loosening of kin ties than Britons, Germans and Austrians. Italians and Hungarians do still maintain very close kin relations. It is argued that level of economic development as well as sociocultural characteristics of these societies (traditions of close kin7ndash;relations in South/East-Europe vs. loosened kin ties in Northwestern-Europe dating back to preindustrial times; higher geographic mobility in America and Australia; individualistic lifestyle in the Anglo-Saxon nations) play a significant role in explaining for these differences. Reduced face-to-face contacts do not imply, however, that primary groups in general lose their function of providing social support. Close kin and friends are named as most important persons when one is in need of instrumental and emotional help in all examined nations, professional assistance as yet seems to be of minor importance.