# Crossnational Comparisons of Kinlessness and Health: Past, Present and Future

> **NIH NIH R01** · PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY, THE · 2021 · $56,655

## Abstract

Project Summary
(copied from parent grant)
Countries around the world are currently experiencing the long-term effects of prior demographic changes.
Historical drops in mortality and fertility rates associated with the first demographic transition are causing
dramatic population aging in many societies, with more to follow. More recently, the second demographic
transition engendered a reorganization of family formation processes in many places; these processes are
ongoing, but retreats from marriage, increased divorce, and greater levels of childlessness are spreading to
ever more contexts. The natural consequence of these combined forces is a world where many countries have
increasingly larger subpopulations of older adults lacking the types of living family members that are the
mainstays of social support networks. In this project, we aim to examine how the family networks of older
adults are changing across countries, how they will likely change in the future, and how shifts in kin availability
will impact health through mechanisms of loneliness and social isolation. In the proposed project, we will
undertake these goals by combining data from numerous nationally representative studies with computational
social network and demographic projection methods to examine the current and rapidly growing future
prevalence of older adults who do not have any living family members – what we refer to as kinlessness – and
we will test what these trends imply for population health now and in the future. Using 17 different data sets
from 36 countries, our estimates of family structure and health provide coverage for 70.5% of the global
population of adults ages 45 and above, with some representation in each world region. Using these data, we
will first document national differences in prevalence of kinless older adults according to several definitions of
kinlessness (e.g. lacking a spouse/partner and children; having none of the following kin types: spouse/partner,
children, parents, or siblings; etc.). Next, we will examine associations between kinlessness and health, with
specific attention to loneliness and social isolation mechanisms, including examining kin geographic proximity,
and contact, communication, transfers, and exchanges with kin and non-kin. After this, we will use social
network simulation and demographic projection methods to situate contemporary estimates of kinlessness in
historical context for each country in our study. Doing so will allow us to provide clear estimates of the future
trajectory of trends in kinlessness in different contexts and to characterize general processes and contextual
variation in its likely unfolding. As part of this endeavor, we will apply estimates of relationships between
lacking living kin and health to our projections in order to characterize how kinlessness and family structure
trends might affect global health in the coming decades. We will also test sensitivities to uncertainty about
future demographic tr...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10428437
- **Project number:** 3R01AG060949-03S1
- **Recipient organization:** PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY, THE
- **Principal Investigator:** Ashton Michael Verdery
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $56,655
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2019-05-15 → 2024-02-29

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10428437

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10428437, Crossnational Comparisons of Kinlessness and Health: Past, Present and Future (3R01AG060949-03S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-06-11 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10428437. Licensed CC0.

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