Significant others and the dynamics of the family network (from the Proches et Parents survey to the Biographies et Entourage survey)

With the increase in separations, family recomposition, and new modes of cohabitation, the contours of the family have become less clearly defined. It has become important to separate the family group from its statistical framework – the household – while taking account, in both time and space, of the interpersonal relationships built up over the life-course. In response to these objectives, the French National Institute of Demographic Studies (INED) conducted two surveys, Proches et Parents in 1990 and Biographies et Entourage in 2001, which use new concepts to address these new family realities: the local family circle which, for an individual, includes family members living in the same municipality, with whom he/she has a close and strong relationship in terms of mutual support and regular contact, and the concept of entourage (contact circle), which includes close relatives, all co-resident persons, whether relatives or not, but also significant others who have marked the individual's life. Far from being limited to the immediate family, the universe of familial and elective relationships covers a much more complex reality whose contours may be limited to the family or extended to a wider circle of relatives and friends. It describes an affective and residential proximity that reveals a mutual support network of varying strength, which may or may not be solicited, which may be avoided or, on the contrary, revived in response to events affecting its members.