Kin networks and relationships

Antti O. TANSKANEN
Professor of Social Sciences | University of Turku, Finland - Research Professor | Population Research Institute,    Finland

Mirkka DANIELSBACKA 
Professor, INVEST Research Flagship Centre

Abstract
Kin is the most important source of social support and wellbeing across societies. Human kin networks are diverse in presence and availability of living kin and affected by changes such as the ongoing demographic transition (i.e., long-term changes in fertility and survival rates) in developed and high-income societies. A consequence of this demographic change is that it will narrow the available kin network over individuals’ life course; the kin network becomes more “vertical”, meaning that kin mainly consist of relatives of a direct decent. Yet, large differences in kinship structures by kin type between individuals are likely to persist in such populations.
Social networks, fertility and wellbeing in ageing populations (NetResilience) consortium investigates demographic change from the perspective of social networks. NetResilience was launched at 2021 and it will continue until 2027. So far we have studied kin effects and kin networks in historical Finland, kin effects on fertility and wellbeing in contemporary societies and many other topics related to social networks, relationships and wellbeing (see consortium publications https://www.netresilience.fi/en/publications/) In this presentation we will briefly present our ongoing and future work with kinship data that we have compiled from Finnish register data encompassing the whole Finnish population.