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The author discusses problems involved in modeling the effects of demographic factors on historical kinship patterns with a focus on microsimulation models. Since microsimulations of kinship ignore the correlations in demographic behavior within kin groups they ordinarily understate the variance of kinship distributions; for many kin types they also underestimate the expected number of kin. The author concludes that those who design demographic models of kinship should be sensitive to the potential for systematic error. (EXCERPT)
Steven Ruggles (1993) studied this question.