Towards a demographic analysis of kinship bereavement

BACKGROUND Kin deaths are universal, but their frequency, timing, and position within family networks vary across demographic regimes. Existing demographic research describes kin loss, but provides limited tools for summarizing its cumulative and life-course consequences. OBJECTIVE We develop a demographic framework to compare bereavement regimes across populations, focusing on three dimensions: cumulative burden, loss of shared lifetime, and generational overlap in kin deaths. METHODS We derive three indicators from age-specific kinship dynamics: bereavement burden, defined from kin-years lived after kin death; shared time lost, measured as expected kin-years of potential coexistence removed by death; and generational overlap, measuring coincidence between age-specific death schedules of different kin types. We apply the framework to female 1950 cohorts in Argentina and Guatemala using UN-2024 data and matrix kinship models. RESULTS The comparison identifies contrasting bereavement regimes. Guatemala has much higher burdens from child and sibling deaths and larger total losses of shared time with these kin. Argentina has a higher grandparent burden and greater shared time lost per child death. Death schedules are also more strongly overlapped in Guatemala, particularly for siblings and parents and for children and parents, whereas Argentina displays a more sequential ordering of losses across generations. CONCLUSIONS Similar death counts can conceal markedly different bereavement experiences. The demographic meaning of loss depends on when deaths occur, how many kin are exposed, and how losses are sequenced across generations. CONTRIBUTION We extend formal kinship demography by providing three interpretable indicators that allow bereavement to be compared systematically across demographic regimes using standard population data.