Potential kin networks and observed family environments of children in rural Mali

The rapid decline in mortality in sub-Saharan African countries, mostly driven by improved survival below age 5, has resulted in an expansion of kinship networks around children. However, this increase in the number of related kin is not necessarily reflected in co-residential household arrangements or domestic units of children. Migration flows and the reconfiguration of domestic units can offset the expansion of kin groups induced by demographic changes. The articulation between "observed kinship" around children and the entire "potential kinship" is however difficult to apprehend from conventional survey or census data which usually only consider co-residential living arrangements. Here we compare the extent of the “potential kinship” network of children estimated from microsimulations with the “observed kinship” measured with a demographic survey located in a rural area in Mali, and examine their evolution as mortality declines. This comparison shows that despite the important increase in the number of children’s close kin, the number of relatives around children in their domestic unit stays fairly stable over time, because of migrations and reconfiguration of these units