Clara Luz Zuniga Ortega is reputed to have written:
āTo the outside world we all grow old. But not to brothers and sisters. We know each other as we always were. We know each otherās hearts. We share private family jokes. We remember family feuds and secrets, family griefs and joys. We live outside the touch of timeā (Ortega, source unknown). This much used quote epitomizes the central theme of this book. For better or worse, brothers and sisters can be our longest enduring relationship, and the earliest memories of our siblings stay with us over our life course.
This first chapter sets the scene and raises the questions. With increases in wealth, health and longevity and decreases in fertility in most of the worldās countries, todayās adults will live with fewer siblings than previous generations, but will live with them for a longer time, and inherit more from previous generations. The big question is, in a fast-changing world, with smaller families, more diverse types of family, and in different regions of the world, to what extent do siblings support each other over the life course? To what extent can we rely on support from our siblings in adolescence, midlife and, in particular, in old age?
Three themes permeate the chapters: first, we focus on relations beyond childhood and school years. This perspective does not exclude the undeniable importance of early years; rather, it investigates the many factors shaping sibling dynamics in adulthood and old age, including early years and family background. The dynamics of sibling attachment and competition have universal traits, yet they can also vary greatly by age, family constellation, cultural and ecological factors, and of course individual sibling characteristics.
Second, we focus on factors shaping social support provision between siblings. Such factors can be on an individual, dyadic, family, socio-economic and cultural, or at religious levels. Of special importance are factors associated with sibling conflict and competition, which can detract from support, and how these dynamics can feed into social policy principles and social work.
Third, we focus on change in family life, such as the spread of international migration, artificial reproduction technologies and LBGTQ identities in the family sphere, and how these impact on sibling relations.
The research predominantly presents results from the global North but includes a wide range of studies from the UK, US, Australia, Finland, Israel, Europe, Singapore, New Zealand, Arabia, Rwanda, Pakistan and China. Distinguished international scholars, from several disciplines, including Sociology, Demography, International Development, Gender Studies, Social Policy, Psychology, Anthropology and Social Work, were invited to answer the key question above.
Why Is a Study of Sibling Relationships Across the Life Course of Interest?
Although families in the developed world are becoming smaller, most people have at least one brother or sister. ONS data (2017) shows that 60% of married families had more than one child, and 55% of lone parents had three or more children. In the US, eighty-two percent of children under age 18 in 2015 lived with at least one sibling (Buist et al. 2013). In 2010, McHale et al. (2012) noted that almost 40% of young people under 18 in the US were living with one sibling, about 25% with two and over 15% with three or more siblings. In the US, Asian youths had marginally fewer siblings than white or African American young people. Divorce, remarriage and families with multi-partners mean that 10% of households include step or adoptive siblings (McHale et al. 2012). Elsewhere in the world, larger families are associated with life in poorer regions. In 2017, African women have 4.5 children on average, while in Asia the figure is 2.1 children, in Latin America 2.0, North America 1.9 and Europe 1.6. The global average is for women to have 2.5 children (United Nations 2017). Across the world, of course, other children may have siblings living apart following family adversity, parental breakdown or death of a parent.
Who Is a Sibling?
One of the key challenges in bringing this volume on Brothers and Sisters together, is to define who is a sibling? In this book, the definition of a brother/sister is someone who is a first-degree sibling relation, through genetic relatedness, kinship (e.g. adoption), or co-residence in childhood, that is, someone who has been brought up as a brother or sister in the family as a child. We also distinguish between full, half and stepsiblings.
Across history, as we will see in Chapter 4, a wide range of family connections have been called āsiblingsā. In folk lore and medieval times, for example, there are so-called āfictive siblingsā who come to live with the family who may have no genetic relationship to each other and milk siblings, those who have shared a wet-nurse. There is also the tradition of sworn-brothers; as well as monks and nuns who call each other ābrother and āsisterā. Other cultures such as the Maori (see Chapter 5) have their own definitions, and may include a range of connected and unconnected family members. But perhaps more dramatic are the ānew siblingsā as featured in this book, for example, surrogate siblings (see Chapter 10), some of whom have been brought up by the birth mother and others brought up in a surrogate family.
What Is Social Support?
There are many definitions of social support found in the literature. Although different terminology is used in many of them, the definitions possess common characteristics. All the definitions imply some type of positive interaction, or helpful behaviour, provided to a person in need of support (Hupcey 1998).
People provide support for a variety of reasons. They include feelings of social obligation and empathy, and selfish reasons, such as being able to ask for assistance for themselves in the future. Broadly speaking, there are four main types of support: First, Emotional/Psychological support which offers empathy, concern, affection. Second, there is Instrumental support in the provision of financial assistance, material goods, or services. Third, there is Informational support in the provision of guidance, and useful information, and finally, there is Companionship support in the sense of shared social activities (Wills 1991; Uchino 2004). All types of social support will be considered in this book.
What Do We Know Already?
Despite their ubiquity, research on siblings, particularly after childhood, has received far less attention than other relationships in childrenās lives. Although siblings are building blocks of family structure and key players in family dynamics, their role has been relatively neglected by family scholars and by those who study close relationships (McHale et al. 2012). McHale notes that in a search of sociological and psychological abstracts between 1990 and 2011 she found 741 citations on sibling relations, as against 33,990 citations for parent or parenting. Although parentāchild relationships have dominated much research, children may spend more time interacting with their siblings than they do with their parents (Buist et al. 2013).
Theoretically, sibling relations over the life course are often explained by attachment theory (Bowlby 1979; Cicirelli 1995). Lifespan attachment theory implies that the childās early attachments to the mother and/or primary caretaker not only continue through the adult years, but are the basis for the attachment with siblings through the life course.
Characteristics of sibling relationships feature both positive characteristics, such as warmth, intimacy and support, as well as negative features, such as intense conflict, aggression, hostility, jealously and rivalry (McHale et al. 2012). Siblings may have different roles in the lives of their brothers and sisters; they may act as support providers, act as role models and influence each other through...