Kinship network across the life course: the case of French generations born from 1850 to 2000

Antoine Pierrard, Université Catholique de Louvain

This paper aims to investigate how kinship entourage evolves throughout an entire individual life course. Data are drawn from a micro simulated sample: the base population (1/100th of the French 1851 census) is submitted to mortality and fertility risks, as well as its generated offspring. For the generation of the nineteenth century, demographic forecasts are requested to provide unobserved vital rates. We show how kinship network is shaped across the life course by demographic change, historical events such as war and booms, and long trends like sustained low fertility. We also point out the interest of a whole biographic and wide historical perspective.