Social Network Blog - r14

I think that you pose a very interesting question in wondering why low income people have fewer kinship ties. I think that the cause of this is almost the opposite of why high income people have fewer kinship ties. Whereas you note that you imagine high income “people have more pressing jobs, increased travel and similar issues that keep them…away from their homes,” I would suggest that lower income people do not have the resources to travel from their homes. Thus, they are stuck living where their jobs are. Granted, if they have kin living by them, then they can form ties with these individuals. However, if their jobs pulled them to a different geographical location from where they grew up – yet they do not have the resources to travel to visit family – then their kinship ties are likely to be weaker. Indeed, this is a consequence of limited communication and transportation opportunities.

I wonder if this trend is part of the reason behind McPherson’s findings. Specifically, McPherson found both that (1) kinship ties are more prevalent and (2) people are more educated (resulting in higher socioeconomic status) in 2004 than in 1984. Does this corroborate with the trend that lower income people have less kinship ties than middle income people? If so, does it continue to explain how higher income people have fewer kinship ties?

It is possible for one person to fulfill all of the subcategories, but it is highly unlikely. The articles are adamant about some categories can only be fulfilled by a specific kind of person. Financial aid has been somewhat restricted to close kin only. So in order for a person to fulfill all of the roles it has to been a person in a very specific position. In my life the person I could imagine fulfilling all of the roles is a much older brother or parent who has many different ties. Anyways the odds of a single person fulfilling all of the 5 different subcategories to 5 different people are unlikely but diffidently possible. The key would be that the person maintains many different ties of different age groups. To provide financial aid, the person must most likely be older, but for this same person to be a companion, they most likely would be similar ages. The more I try to imagine people fulfill all of the rolls, the more likely it is, a person with many social ties developed over a life time can fulfill all the roles but less likely to 5 completely different people.

I'm going to jump on the boat with my theory about low-income families. First off, I think this is a great question and really made me think for a while. I feel that in low-income homes one of the reasons that kinship ties may not be as strong is because the situation can be so tough that there often tends to be a lot of domestic issues. I feel that when economic pressures are so tight and you're struggling just to eat it may be hard to pull together as a kinship unit to get through things. We'd like to think that everyone binds together in tough times but with enough hardship people may try to turn away from that lifestyle and separate themselves from the situation. It's a sad story when so many low-income areas are plagued with such drug-use and violence, but it says something that these things are so rampant. This would be in contrast to middle income families who, are more financially secure and have more time to spend with their family and have an easier time helping each other out and building trust. In the inner-city it may be that the pressures are so much that it's just difficult to build a strong family without totally frustrating each other. Also maybe in recent times lower-income children have realized that they can be socially mobile and rise up if they work hard enough and do well in school. Perhaps, the situation their family has placed them in really turns them off to their kinship unit and instead they aspire to be more and break off. These are obviously just theories but I think it says something about the larger social structure of our country. An investigation that looked into low-income families and why or why not they're close would be very useful here.

“…Just as a last food for thought, is it possible for someone to play each role separately for 5 different people? What type of person would you expect this from?”

I would agree with Bryce that it is unlikely that one person would fulfill these 5 separate roles. I know that I personally discuss different issues and problems with different friends. I talk to my high school friends about my personal and family life, turn to college friends for problems at school and for companionship, turn to my parents for financial help when necessary and to my sorority sisters for favors however big or small. Again, I agree with Bryce that age is a factor, but also location/proximity, what resources they have to them (e.g. financially), the context of your relationship, etc.

“As for the low income people however, I could not think of a good theory as to why they have less kinship ties. So classmates, I ask you…”

Mindy’s comment mentioned that high income families have “more pressing jobs, increased travel and similar issues that keep them either away from their own homes, or force them to move into a rural environment…” and I agree with Jason’s argument that this may also be the case for low income families- that economic pressures and stress from daily life may actually drive people away from their kin. It may also be that inner city kids are forced to become independent and “grow up” a lot faster than kids of their age with different economic backgrounds. Having to work from an early age and going through the stress of helping support the family may also skew the parent/child relationship. Again, these are just my theories and I agree that this issue definitely merits more consideration in the research today.

I have to admit that I was kind of confused about your comments on Bott. If I’m not mistaken you are saying that if we are indeed starting to have stronger relationships with out spouses, then it is more likely that the forbidden triad would occur. I’m sure if that’s what you are trying to say but I feel like the opposite would hold true.

Bott suggests that when couples share conjugal roles, they are more likely to have overlapping networks, although these networks will not be highly connected among themselves. So if you and your spouse are close, he/she would know both your best friend and your colleague at work, but your best friend and colleague are not as likely to know each other. So if we are getting more strongly connected to our spouses as Mc Pherson et al. suggests, it is also more likely that our spouses would know more of our network, meaning the forbidden triads involving our spouses would be minimized. However, I don’t think this should have any effect on how well our networks are connected among themselves, which suggest to me that the correlation works in the opposite direction, in the sense that the degree of the conjugal relationship is the result of the degree of network connectedness, not the reason.

As for your question about low-income families not having strong ties, I think one reason for that could be related to survival instincts. As Jason points out, in low SES conditions it’s likely that each individual will look out for him/herself instead of looking out for the whole family, and making enough money for one’s basic needs would be such a pressing matter that one might not have time or the will to build and maintain strong kinship ties.

You pose an interesting question about the lower income families being less close to their kin. The first thing that I thought of was actually the same reason you gave for upper-class families - that they work more. If a lower-class family is struggling to work to keep food on the table they will not have the time (nor the resources) to take off work to spend time, with their extended family. And in today's world it often takes a considerable amount of time seeing as how families are more spatially separated today and are often not even living within driving distance of each other. I also think there may be sort of a pride issue going on to a lesser extent. Maybe these lower-class families do not want their families to know how they are doing for fear of their unwanted pity/criticisms of their inadequacy. These were just a few of the things that entered my mind.

Regarding the idea that with spouses becoming our strongest ties, the forbidden triangle will be more likely to occur, I am not so sure this is the case. I think that anytime you have a dating relationship where you become each other's #1 in life, the strong ties around you will automatically weaken to a certain extent. Although this is obviously depending on how you classify a strong tie to begin with. But if you classify it as "time spent together," whether that is face-to-face time or not, it is almost impossible to have a strongly-tied friendship with someone and not include your spouse in it at least enough that they know a lot about each other, and even more specifically that they know each other. However, if it is a person who was only a "once long ago strong tie" to your spouse, I think the tie will either weaken, or the two will be forced to form a strong tie as well. I'm trying to think in my own experience of any examples where this isn't the case, and I just can't find any. This leads me to believe that either the tie weakens or the second and third must connect.