Kinship and Migration Strategies among Settled Londoners: Two Responses to Population Pressure

Abstract

The author critically examines the distinction that is often made between extended families in which visiting and active help are frequent and modified extended families in which meetings are relatively rare and contact is maintained mainly through economic help the post and the telephone. These two forms of kinship are normally seen as typical of relatively static and highly mobile social groups respectively. In the present paper it is argued that this distinction does not do justice to the experience of a number of families who are part of the migration streams flowing outwards from the centre of a major conurbation. In these instances moves are undertaken which go well beyond the ordinary range of a local extended family as described in smaller cities...; yet local kinship is continuously re-created through a variety of migration strategies. The study is based on interviews conducted in 1970 with a random sample of 100 London respondents. Comparisons are made between a group of outward-moving families (who had a reasonable range of housing choice) and a group of static families of similar origins (who did not). (EXCERPT)