A. Provision of social security• Kinship networks play a major role even in societies with developed

social security systems. Can they continue to do so– if the state partially withdraws from social security?– in a context of changing family structures?

• Is the extent of variation in the welfare role of families between different parts of Europe compatible with the construction of a common Europe-wide system of state social security?

B. Kinship issues and other policy goals• What impact would an expanded social security role for the family have

on women’s economic participation, and on gender relations generally?• What impact might it have on civil society?• What impact might it have on the birth rate?

Policy background

Project Co-ordinator: Dr. Patrick Heady

Kinship And Social SecurityAn interdisciplinary project with an anthropological agenda funded by the European Union's Sixth Framework Programme

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A. To understand why, and when, relatives help each other• Kinship altruism?• Reciprocity?• Rational self-interest?• Cultures of kinship?• To acquire social capital?Or some combination of these.

B. To understand why people acquire more relativesRelatives can be acquired through procreation, though marriage or through spiritual kinship.

A. Do the theories that explain interaction between relatives also explain attempts to acquire more relatives?

B. Can this perspective help us to understand changing birth rates?

Scientific aims

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1. Gather background information on social security and family systems from– official sources– official statistics– sociological surveys

2. Look at historical data on interaction between family patterns and state social security systems since the foundation of modern state social security 100-150 years ago.

3. Fieldwork studies in both urban and rural areas. Key focuses: extensive data on kinship-networks; background data on other sources of help, property etc; open interviews about understanding of kinship and about helping relationships; participant observation. Fieldwork data to be analyzed both as ethnographic studies and via mathematical modeling of network relationships.

Research strategy

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Kinship Network Questionnaire

1 Max-Planck-Institute for Social Anthropology Halle 2 Max-Planck-Institute for Demographic Research Rostock 3 Max-Planck-Institute for Research into Economic Systems Jena 4 Karl-Franzens-University Graz 5 Austrian Institute for Family Studies Vienna University of Vienna 6 Institute for Ethnology and Folklore Research Zagreb 7 Université Paris X-Nanterre 8 Université de Franche-Comté Besancon 9 University of Cologne10 Universitá Degli Studi di Siena11 Catholic University Nijmegen12 Adam Mickiewicz University Poznan13 Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences14 Södertörns högskola Huddinge15 Nicolaus Copernikus University Torun16 Georg-August-University Göttingen

Fieldsites and Contractors

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