Many individuals with degenerative eye conditions try to conceal their identity as visually impaired in the professional setting. Different aspects of career outcomes (e.g. age of retirement) and wellbeing outcomes (e.g. self-acceptance and stress) associate with identity concealment patterns of individuals throughout their careers. Identifying concealment patterns will allow health professionals to tackle particular adverse outcomes and challenges associated with these patterns.

In order to understand the interdependency between intergenerational and adult sibling relationships, a family systems perspective is applied to identify a smaller—empirically analyzable—relational unit of analysis, that is, the sibling–parent–sibling triad. Using balance theory, triadic configurations are derived that represent enhancement, compensation, and loyalty conflicts. The hypotheses are tested for three relational dimensions: support exchange, contact, and conflict. Multilevel analyses of 549 sibling–parent–sibling triads from the Netherlands Kinship Panel data show strong evidence for enhancement, whereas some indication was obtained for sibling relationships being affected by loyalty conflicts. The results underscore and substantiate interdependency between intergenerational and adult sibling relationships.

Drawing on three theories in sociology, this chapter presents a theoretical framework for studying the consequences of parental divorce for the structure of relationships within the nuclear family and between nuclear and extended family members. First, interdependence as defined in family systems theory (FST) is explained. Second, the configurational approach (CA) is introduced. CA stresses the individual perspective in defining the family network and the non-static influence of configurations on the individual. Empirically, CA requires the collection of ego (personal) network data about family members and their relationships, the socalled Family Network Method (FNM). Third, the concept of a sharing group (SG) is introduced. SGs are characterized by the joint production of a common good by groups of individuals, subject to three types of interdependence: functional, structural and cognitive. Building on insights from FST and CA, the Multi-Actor Family Network Approach (MAFNA) is introduced, which conceives of families as SGs. Next, methods for the empirical implementation of MAFNA, requiring the collection of information about all family members and their relationships, are sketched, as well as social network analysis techniques for such data. Finally, the chapter discusses what kind of answers and questions in divorce research may be addressed using MAFNA.

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