Karin Wall is Research Professor at the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon, Portugal.

Eric D. Widmer is Professor at the Department of Sociology, University of Geneva, Switzerland.

Jacques-Antoine Gauthier is Senior Lecturer at the Life Course and Social Inequality Research Centre, University of Lausanne, Switzerland.

Rita Gouveia is Post-doctoral Fellow at the NCCR-LIVES, University of Geneva, Switzerland.

1. Introduction; Eric D. Widmer, Jacques-Antoine Gauthier, Karin Wall, Vida Cesnuityte and Rita Gouveia.

2. Contextualising Personal Networks Across Birth Cohorts and Countries; Vasco Ramos, Vida Cesnuityte, Karin Wall, and Dominique Joye.

3. A First Portrait of Personal Networks in a Comparative Perspective; Rita Gouveia, Gaëlle Aeby, and Vida Cesnuityte.

4. Changing Meanings of Family in Personal Relationships: a Comparative Perspective; Karin Wall, Rita Gouveia, Gaëlle Aeby, and Vida Cesnuityte.

5. Mapping the Plurality of Personal Configurations; Gaëlle Aeby, Eric D. Widmer, Vida Cesnuityte, and Rita Gouveia.

6. Understanding Personal Networks as Social Capital; Eric D. Widmer, Rita Gouveia, Gaëlle Aeby, and Vida Cesnuityte.

7. Linking Family Trajectories and Personal Networks; Jacques-Antoine Gauthier, Gaëlle Aeby, Vasco Ramos, and Vida Cesnuityte.

8. Conclusions; Karin Wall, Vida Cesnuityte, Eric D. Widmer, and Jacques-Antoine Gauthier.

This book critically assesses the main features of the modernization of family life and personal relationships by examining and comparing three European countries with different social and political pathways: Portugal, Switzerland and Lithuania. Drawing on national surveys of family trajectories and social networks, the contributors highlight personal and family relationships through the lens of network and life course perspectives as well as gender and generational perspectives.

Providing innovative, comparative findings on families and personal networks through the use of diverse methodologies, this edited collection will be of interest to scholars, students and policymakers across a range of social science disciplines.