Is Blood Thicker than Water? Comparing Social Support from Nuclear, Extended, and Chosen Families across Twenty-Seven Countries

Saverio Minardi , University of Bologna

In recent years, social scientists have renewed attention to the role of extended kinship in life-course events and inequalities. In this literature, kinship is implicitly defined through genealogical ties, assuming that social relations defined through chains of parental and marital connections generate social obligations that have primacy over other social ties, as reflected in the saying "blood is thicker than water." Anthropological research has challenged this view, suggesting instead that kinship is rooted in social roles and practices. Ethnographic research on chosen families, fictive kinship, and disrupted family networks, highlighted that the functional, symbolic, and cultural element of kinship could exist independently of bio-legal links. This article examines whether bio-legal relationships are proxies of the functional elements attributed to kinship in western societies. First, it advances a functional definition and operationalisation of kinship detached from bio-legal assumption: the primary expectation of social support. Second, using survey data from 27 countries, it explores whether bio-legal relationships align with individual primary expectations of support for material and emotional needs. Findings suggest that while nuclear family members are the primary sources of support, friends and community strongly surpass the extended family. Moreover, individuals missing close family members are most likely to compensate through non-bio-legal ties rather than more distant relatives. These results challenge reliance on bio-legal networks in socio-demographic research and advocate redefining kinship to better reflect contemporary realities and the diverse experiences of kinship.

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 Presented in Session 96. Intergenerational Relations, Financial Support and Inequalities