The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has led to a large increase in mortality in the United States and around the world, leaving many grieving the sudden loss of family members. We created an indicator—the COVID-19 bereavement multiplier—that estimates the average number of individuals who will experience the death of a close relative (defined as a grandparent, parent, sibling, spouse, or child) for each COVID-19 death. Using demographic microsimulation-based estimates of kinship networks in the United States, the clear age gradient in COVID-19 mortality seen across contexts, and several hypothetical infection prevalence scenarios, we estimate COVID-19 bereavement multipliers for White and Black individuals in the United States. Our analysis shows that for every COVID-19 death, approximately nine surviving Americans will lose a grandparent, parent, sibling, spouse, or child. These estimates imply, for example, that if 190,000 Americans die from COVID-19, as some models project, then ∼1.7 million will experience the death of a close relative. We demonstrate that our estimates of the bereavement multiplier are stable across epidemiological realities, including infection scenarios, total number of deaths, and the distribution of deaths, which means researchers can estimate the bereavement burden over the course of the epidemic in lockstep with rising death tolls. In addition, we provide estimates of bereavement multipliers by age group, types of kin loss, and race to illuminate prospective disparities. The bereavement multiplier is a useful indicator for tracking COVID-19’s multiplicative impact as it reverberates across American families and can be tailored to other causes of death.

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Kinship networks are important but remain understudied in contemporary developed societies. Because hazards of vital events such as marriage, fertility, and mortality vary demographically, it is likely that average numbers of extended kin also vary meaningfully by education and race, but researchers have not addressed this topic. Existing research on kinship in developed societies focuses on group-level differences in multiplex kin networks such as those comprising household co-residence, instrumental and emotional support, and frequency of contact. By contrast, we provide the first population-based estimates of group-level differences in living kin in the contemporary United States. We estimate, by race, educational attainment, and age, average numbers of living parents, children, spouse/partner, full and half siblings, grandparents, grandchildren, aunt/uncles, nieces/nephews, and cousins, and test whether group differences in average kin counts are attributable to group differences in kin mortality and other processes.

Many unhealthy behaviors develop during adolescence, and these behaviors can have fundamental consequences for health and mortality in adulthood. Social network structure and the degree of homophily in a network affect how health behaviors and innovations are spread. However, the degree of health behavior homophily across different social ties and within subpopulations is unknown. This paper addresses this gap in the literature by using a novel regression model to document the degree of homophily across various relationship types and subpopulations for behaviors of interest that are related to health outcomes. These patterns in health behavior homophily have implications for which behaviors and ties should be the subjects of future research and for predicting how homophily may shape health programs focused on specific subpopulations (gender, race, class, health status) or a specific social context (families, peer groups, classrooms, or school activities).

Close kin provide many important functions as adults age, affecting health, financial well-being, and happiness. Those without kin report higher rates of loneliness and experience elevated risks of chronic illness and nursing facility placement. Historical racial differences and recent shifts in core demographic rates suggest that white and black older adults in the United States may have unequal availability of close kin and that this gap in availability will widen in the coming decades. Whereas prior work explores the changing composition and size of the childless population or those without spouses, here we consider the kinless population of older adults with no living close family members and how this burden is changing for different race and sex groups. Using demographic microsimulation and the United States Census Bureau's recent national projections of core demographic rates by race, we examine two definitions of kinlessness: those without a partner or living children, and those without a partner, children, siblings, or parents. Our results suggest dramatic growth in the size of the kinless population as well as increasing racial disparities in percentages kinless. These conclusions are driven by declines in marriage and are robust to different assumptions about the future trajectory of divorce rates or growth in nonmarital partnerships. Our findings draw attention to the potential expansion of older adult loneliness, which is increasingly considered a threat to population health, and the unequal burden kinlessness may place on black Americans.O lder adults without kin are some of the most disadvantaged and isolated members of society (1, 2), because close kin are vital sources of social support that affect social, economic, and physical well-being (3, 4). The availability of kin is repeatedly implicated in studies of healthy aging (5, 6), and lacking kin is among the social factors most positively associated with nursing facility placement and quality of care (7, 8). Loneliness appears to be increasing among older adults (9) and is more strongly associated with early mortality than smoking and excessive alcohol consumption (10). Because kin make up the dominant share of most Americans' close confidante networks (11), it is no surprise that loneliness is most prevalent among the never married, widowed, and divorced as well as the childless and those without partners (12, 13). Of course, not all close kin are in contact, geographically proximate, emotionally intimate, or willing or able to exchange resources, but the availability of kin is a necessary condition for their provision of such functions (14). For these reasons, it is important to examine the population dynamics of those who lack close kin (15). In the American kinship system (16), demographic events determine the availability of kin, with marriage and fertility producing kin and death and divorce reducing them. The clear links between demographic processes and kinship networks (17, 18) imply that ongoing demographic changes in American society ...