The size and structure of families are changing dramatically and will do so even more in the coming years. “The number of relatives a person has will decrease by 35% towards the end of the century; the probability that a baby will have siblings or cousins ??will be very low, and instead it is easy for him to have his four grandparents and five or six great-grandparents alive, although this does not mean that they will take care of him, because the age difference between generations is on the rise and the dependency linked to aging as well”, explains Diego Alburez-Gutierrez, a scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Germany, who has published a study on the evolution of human relationships from kinship based on historical and projected United Nations world population data.
This projection reveals a phenomenon that demographers and sociologists have been warning about for some time in Spain: families are getting smaller, longer and narrower, and this will have consequences in relationships, health, the economy and public policies, among other areas.
Goodbye support network
More need for care and fewer caregivers
Luis Ayuso, professor at the University of Malaga specializing in family sociology, says that the biggest change will be the reduction of support networks. “Spain is a family-oriented country, where the family is an invisible but very important network: it helps us find work, it is an economic and emotional mattress when circumstances go badly, it is the basis of care for young and old… And this will change because we are moving towards families with more care needs and fewer potential carers, both because there will be fewer members and because of changes in social roles, especially for women”, says Ayuso.
One of the phenomena that will disappear, for example, will be that of grandparents waiting at the school door to pick up the children. Pau Miret, researcher at the Center for Demographic Studies (CED) of the UAB, emphasizes that life expectancy is increasing, but life expectancy without dependency is not so much. This, together with the fact that for some time now children have been having their children later, will cause many grandparents to be elderly people who, rather than caring, will need to be cared for or who will be caring for their parents, great-grandparents.
He emphasizes that, in any case, there will be few children because the birth rate is at a minimum (almost a quarter of the generation born in the 80s has not had children), and instead there will be more elderly people. According to INE projections, in 2072 12% of the population will be 80 years or older and the number of centenarians, now 14,287 people, will approach 227,000 (see more information in the graphs). Many of these people will need help and not all of them will have children, nephews or siblings to care for them. And those who do have them may not be able to trust that they will be taken care of because the social model and family roles have changed. “The role of supermama, superdaughter or supergrandmother is being lost”, agrees Ayuso.
More generational distance
Increased loneliness
unwanted
Eduardo Bericat, professor of Sociology at the University of Seville and researcher of social values, assures that the demographic factor “is just another effect of the process of individualization in which we are immersed: our fertility rates are falling to the same extent and rate that increase our desires to lead a life free of social conditioning”.
And he predicts another consequence of the reduction of family networks: the increase in unwanted loneliness, associated with a reduction in emotional well-being, as well as a greater risk of depression, and which various researches also relate to worse physical health . Therefore, as families have fewer members and they lead more independent and autonomous lives, they will have to change public and private policies to strengthen formal care systems and attend to the multiple mental health problems that will affect the population, reflects Bericat.
New links
Of blood ties
to the emotional
Alburez-Gutierrez explains that kinship projections reveal that each person will not only have fewer people of similar ages in their family due to a lack of siblings and cousins, but will also be further away from their relatives of other generations because, in childbearing age has been delayed for decades and continues to do so.
“What will happen is that we will lose many strong ties, a lot of blood family, and we will incorporate into our network weak ties, those of friends, neighbors and other people from the environment”, says Ayuso. And he points out that the blood family is giving way to the digital family and the emotional family. “We are a very social country and as family ties disappear we will create others: your friends from daycare and school will be like your cousins; many elderly people are already doing it, and when they are asked who makes up their family, they include their carers”, he exemplifies.
Alburez-Gutierrez believes that emotional family is not comparable to kinship. “It is thought that friends will replace relatives, but as you get older your friendship network diminishes because there are fewer living friends,” he warns.
Loss of diversity
Fewer intergenerational and heterogeneous relationships
The loss of real relatives also implies a drastic reduction in intergenerational relations. Sociological surveys indicate that less than 40% of older people maintain ties of friendship with someone under the age of 35. And young people also do not deal with seniors beyond their parents or grandparents.
“The family is the space where intergenerational coexistence took place, where old and young share experiences and opinions in a safe environment, and this has benefits because it avoids isolation and mental health problems, but it also affects education and transmission of information”, comments the demographer of the Max Planck Institute.
And he emphasizes that, when relatives are lost, diversity, heterogeneity and perspectives are also lost in the ideas and knowledge that are received. “In extended families there is diversity of opinion and people are exposed to ideas that are not theirs (just think of the controversial uncle or brother-in-law every Christmas) and as the members are reduced we will be less exposed to other ways of thinking that reflect reality, which can be more or less serious depending on the person’s ability to access information”, reasons Alburez-.
