An analysis of 549 cultures included in Murdock's "World Ethnographic Sample" reveals a rough relationship between type of family system and certain economic factors-especially the subsistence pattern and the amount of family property. The independent family system tends to predominate in hunting and gathering societies, the extended family where there is a more ample and secure food supply. The extended family system tends to be associated with social stratification, even when subsistence patterns are held constant, and is functionally adapted to the control of property. Deviant cases reveal that migration, warfare, and heavy seasonal demands on labor may also have an effect upon the family system.
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Nimkoff et al. (1960) studied this question.