Typologies of filiation, marriage, and economic dependency networks in Chilean households
Name: Andrew Turner
School: Mailman School of Public Health, Class of 2024
Mentor: Nicolás Montalva, PhD; Diego Palacios, PhD; Michael Joseph, PhD, MPH
Abstract
Research Question: To explore the kinship networks in households in Chile, and how these networks are associated with patterns of economic dependency and support within households.
Hypothesis 1: The typology of household structures obtained from empirical data will differ from the typology of unipersonal, nuclear, extended, complete and without nucleus, traditionally employed in census classifications.
Hypothesis 2: Resource allocation within a household prioritizes allocation of resources to kin over non-kin, to younger members over older members and to men over women.
Background: Social relationships within Chilean households are being transformed. Demographic changes: declining birthrate, population aging and economic changes: reduced access to quality housing alter how families share resources. Existing literature has attempted to quantify new relationships of economic dependence by analyzing trends of adult co-residency with older parents, largely in the United States; however, little research has occurred outside a Western context.
Methods: Information from the Chilean National Socioeconomic Characterisation Survey during the 2020 pandemic (CASEN en Pandemia) was used as the primary source to build networks of descent, marriage, and economic support for each of the 62,540 households included in the survey, encompassing 185,437 individuals. Social Network Analysis is our main methodological tool of analysis. A subset of graph theory, SNA allows us to map out jural, biological, and economic relationships of household residents and describe them quantitatively.
Results: Data Analysis is still ongoing. Preliminary results of the first 10,000 households (selected randomly) show an average household composition of 2.97 and a density of 0.74. Additional descriptive variables are still being calculated.