Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 May 2010
The SOCSIM micro-simulation model is used to investigate how kinship and family patterns in Britain changed as people passed through the ‘First Demographic Transition’, starting in the late nineteenth century, and the ‘Second Demographic Transition’, from the 1960s. Certain types of kin, such as former partners, became more common, and others, such as ever-born siblings, less so. An ageing of generational relationships is observed: events that formerly occurred early in life, such as the experience of one's parents' deaths, are being postponed. Patterns of re-partnering are leading to more partial relationships involving step- and supplanted parents, half-siblings, former partners and stepchildren.
Nous avons utilisé le modèle de micro-simulation SOCSIM pour rechercher en quoi les modèles de parenté et de famille ont changé suite à la première transition démographique de la fin du XIXe siècle et suite à la seconde qui date des années 1960. Certains types de liens de parenté tels ceux liant d'anciens compagnons et compagnes sont devenus plus courants, d'autres le sont devenus moins, tels les rapports entre enfants de la famille devenus moins nombreux. On observe aussi que les relations entre générations durent plus longtemps: l'expérience de la mort des parents se produit plus tard au cours de la vie. Et les formes que prennent les réaccouplements impliquent des relations plus distendues avec les beaux-parents anciens et nouveaux, les demi-frères ou sœurs, les compagnons précédents et les beaux-enfants.
Mit Hilfe des Mikrosimulationsmodels SOCSIM wird untersucht, wie sich im Zuge des ersten demographischen Übergangs, der im späten 19. Jahrhundert einsetzte, und dann im zweiten demographischen Übergang seit den 1960er Jahren die Verwandtschafts- und Familienmuster änderten. Verwandte bestimmten Typs wie z.B. frühere Ehepartner, wurden häufiger, andere dagegen seltener, wie z.B. Geschwister. Auch eine Alterung der Generationenbeziehungen lässt sich beobachten: Ereignisse, die man früher eher in jungen Jahren erlebte, wie z.B. den Tod eines Elternteils, treten nun später auf. Dadurch, dass mehrfach im Leben feste Partnerschaften eingegangen werden, gibt es mehr Teilbeziehungen und demzufolge mehr Stief- und Ersatzeltern, Halbgeschwister, Ex-Partner und Stiefkinder.
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22 Note that this is not possible where a woman gives birth without an identified partner (in this analysis, any birth outside of a cohabiting or marital union), since such fathers are regarded as unknown. Thus the data for certain types of kin presented here, such as the proportion with surviving parents and grandparents, are based on the sub-group of people all of whose relevant relatives are known, although alternative calculations including children with missing fathers (and grandfathers in the case of grandparental estimates) have also been made. Such births outside of a partnership in this model account for about 5 per cent of births until around 1950, but the figure had increased to about 10 per cent by 2000.
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28 The RMS difference is the square root of the mean of the squared difference of the fitted and actual values in each age group. It therefore indicates the typical level of error of the fitted values, which will be in percentage terms for data such as Table 3 and number of kin in Table 4. In the case of data for 1900, the average proportion of people with a partner is about 40 per cent and the average error is only about 0.5 per cent, indicating a close fit between the actual and fitted values. The magnitude of these values may be compared with the actual values. Note that in this case, unlike with the marital status data, the actual values are estimates obtained from survey data and are therefore subject to random sampling error; this will mean that the fitted values will be compared with estimates that are themselves subject to error, so the differences between the fitted and true values will probably be less than with these estimates, so the values of the RMS difference understate the precision of these results.
29 This is simply the equivalent of taking censuses of the same population at different points in time and producing summary measures of kinship networks at these points.
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53 This article is not concerned with co-residence, so ‘family’ refers to a kin group rather than to the statistically convenient but socially incomplete definition of a family as a co-resident nuclear unit. A situation where a couple splits up leaving the children with the mother, and she forms a new partnership, is different from one where the father does so, since the child is likely to be in a very different relationship with the new partner in these two cases.
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