Kin Network and its Effect on the Psychological Well-being of the Youth: The Case of Taiwan

Abstract

In the course of fast economic development, a significant concomitant impact on the family system in Taiwan is the weakening of kinship relationships. Nevertheless, denser interactions among kin compared to western societies are still documented. Kin remains one of the major sources of social support in Taiwan. In the paper, we explore the effect of kin networks on the psychological well-being of adolescents based on survey data from the Taiwan Youth Project in 2001 and 2005. We first delineate the composition and boundary of kin networks and then analyze factors accounting for variation in intimate kin networks of adolescents, using the number of intimate kin as the indicator. The major findings are as follows. Intimate relationships between the youth and their grandparents imply a bilateral pattern. The kin network of the youths is limited mostly within the third degree relatives of their parental generation or the fourth degree relatives of their own generation, and reflect also a bilateral pattern but with a little more matrilineal inclination . Adolescents in the most disadvantaged families tend to have a smaller number of intimate kin. As expected, intimate relationships with parents and grandparents lead to larger numbers of intimate kin. In addition, the number of intimate kin significantly affect the psychological wellbeing of the youth; somewhat weak but independent of parental relationships (although it is a weak association, but has achieved independent statistical significance after control for the effect of parental relationships) . Although kin relations or kin networks remain prevalent in contemporary Taiwan, the relationships are more significant in early adolescence, and may decline along the course from adolescence to adulthood.