Introduction

This chapter sets the scene for this book’s contribution to the study of families, personal networks, and life course in the early twenty-first century, by focusing on three European countries: Portugal, Lithuania, and Switzerland. The underlying argument of the book is that personal ties, at first sight private and explained by lifestyle preferences, depend on a series of social conditions which shape them beyond individuals’ volition. Personal networks go hand in hand with individual trajectories within a system constrained by the opportunity structures and normative orientations of each society. Such structures and orientations are the product of national histories, as well as classical stratification principles such as those associated with gender and social class, but also with the life cycle and generations.