Vasco Ramos

Coresidence as a Mechanism of Relational Proximity: The Impact of Household Trajectories on the Diversification of Personal Networks

For a long time, the household unit—that is, the ‘menage’—has been a privileged doorway to study family and personal life (Laslett 1972; Wall 2005). Yet, the transformations of family arrangements associated with divorce, informal cohabitation, migration, and ageing alongside the pluralization of the life course have been challenging the heuristic potential of the household unit to capture family meanings and practices (Bonvalet and Lelievre 2013). More recent approaches (e.g., the configurational perspective) highlight the importance of focusing instead on the networks of meaningful relationships in which individuals are embedded in their everyday lives that can go beyond the limits of the household (Widmer 2010).

The Impact of Coresidence Trajectories on Personal Networks During Transition to Adulthood: A Comparative Perspective

Over the life course, individuals develop personal networks that provide essential resources, sporadically or on a daily basis, such as instrumental, emotional, and informational support. Those personal networks are composed of family (i.e., primary and extended kin) and nonfamily ties (i.e., friends, colleagues, acquaintances) (Pahl and Spencer 2004). The prominence of specific ties varies across the life course depending on life stages, transitions, and events. Following the linked-lives principles (Elder et al. 2003), these transitions trigger changes in household composition, promoting different types of relational interdependencies. The level of interdependence with some household members may have a cumulative effect by strengthening the bonds, whereas with others the effect may be more ephemeral and lead to the exclusion of such ties in current personal networks. Thus, coresidence trajectories, such as the experience of growing up in a two or one-parent family, leaving the parental home early or late, moving in with a partner or living alone, becoming a parent, divorcing, and other events, will differentially influence the composition of personal networks.

Critical Review of Research on Families and Family Policies in Europe

FAMILYPLATFORM (SSH-2009-3.2.2 Social platform on research for families and family policies) is funded by the EU’s 7th Framework Programme (€1,400,000) for 18 months (October 2009-March 2011).

Contextualising Personal Networks Across Birth Cohorts and Countries

This chapter starts with a depiction of the macro-level features of Portugal, Switzerland, and Lithuania. Assuming the core tenets of the life course, it draws attention to relevant historical markers in each country’s chronology since the 1950s, and to crucial political and social transformations. At a second stage, it provides a multidimensional depiction of the birth cohorts, which highlights communalities and dissimilarities namely in terms of biographical pathways, familial and occupational trajectories, normative frameworks, and structural conditions. By doing so, we offer a profile of each cohort across countries, which is a key element in understanding how individuals build their family and personal relationships. Underlying our approach is the theoretical stance that personal networks are best understood within the broader contexts in which they exist and evolve.

Linking family trajectories and personal networks

The share of family and non-family ties in personal networks varies not only across the life course following major transitions and events but also according to the type of welfare state in which individual lives unfold. Using network and sequence analyses, this chapter investigates for two birth cohorts (1950–1955 and 1970–1975) how the composition of personal networks is influenced by past co-residence trajectories (from 1990 to 2010) in three European countries (Switzerland, Portugal, and Lithuania). The resulting co-residence trajectories capture a great variety of situations characterized by conjugal status as well as the presence and age of children. Network analyses reveal a focus on the nuclear family of procreation, although highlighting national differences regarding the inclusion of extended kin and non-kin.

Analysis of contextual variables in the evaluation of child abuse in the pediatric emergency setting

OBJECTIVE This article comprises a sample of abuse modalities observed in a pediatric emergency room of a public hospital in the Lisbon metropolitan area and a multifactorial characterization of physical and sexual violence. The objectives are: (1) to discuss the importance of social and family variables in the configuration of both types of violence; (2) to show how physical and sexual violence have subtypes and internal diversity. METHODS A statistical analysis was carried out in a database (1063 records of child abuse between 2004 and 2013). A form was applied to cases with suspected abuse, containing data on the child, family, abuse episode, abuser, medical history, and clinical observation. A factorial analysis of multiple correspondence was performed to identify patterns of association between social variables and physical and sexual violence, as well as their internal diversity. RESULTS The prevalence of abuse in this pediatric emergency room was 0.6%. Physical violence predominated (69.4%), followed by sexual violence (39.3%). Exploratory profiles of these types of violence were constructed. Regarding physical violence, the gender of the abuser was the first differentiating dimension; the victims gender and age range were the second one. In the case of sexual violence, the age of the abuser and co-residence with him/her comprised the first dimension; the victims age and gender comprised the second dimension. CONCLUSION Patterns of association between victims, family contexts, and abusers were identified. It is necessary to alert clinicians about the importance of social variables in the multiple facets of child abuse.