KINMATTER – Kin matter: Exploring the impact of kinship networks on health and social inequalities

Principal Investigator: Marco Tosi

Funder: Italian Research Ministry (MUR) - call FIS 3 SH7 Consolidator Grant - Project Code FIS-2024-00045

Objectives:

Recent demographic shifts have led to a growing number of middle-aged and older adults with few kin members. Despite these trends, contemporary research has predominantly concentrated on a narrow segment of the family network – the ‘nuclear’ family consisting of partners and their children – or has focused solely on the quantity of living kin. KINMATTER is the first comprehensive study to examine how kinship ties count (in terms of their quantity) and matter (in terms of their quality) for individuals’ health and social inequalities– defined as health differences between socioeconomic groups. It is divided into three subprojects:

• Subproject A aims to examine the kinship network, exploring the number of living kin and patterns of residential proximity, affection/conflict, contact, support exchange and obligations.
• Subproject B examines the health and wellbeing implications of kinship networks, focusing on how extended kinship ties may compensate for the absence of partners and/or children.
• Subproject C examines the implications of kinship ties for the evolution of socioeconomic inequalities in health in future European societies.

KINMATTER will collect and analyse extremely detailed data on the quality of kinship ties across two panel waves and five European countries. The project will combine longitudinal statistical models, vignette experiments, and microsimulations to assess the effects of kinship on individuals and societies. Conceptual innovations arise from the integration of two major fields, the demography of kinship and sociological perspectives on social cohesion and inequality.

Duration: TBD