Previous research on the relationship between geographical distance and the frequency of contact between family members has shown that the strength of family ties differs between Northern and Southern Europe. However, little is known about how family ties are reflected in peoples’ conversations on social media, despite research showing the relevance of social media data for understanding users’ daily expressions of emotions and thoughts based on their immediate experiences. This work investigates the question of whether Twitter use patterns in Europe mirror the North–South divide in the strength of family ties by analyzing potential differences in family-related tweets between users in Northern and Southern European countries. This study relies on a longitudinal database derived from Twitter collected between January 2012 and December 2016. We perform a comparative analysis of Southern and Northern European users’ tweets using Bayesian generalized multilevel models together with the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count software. We analyze the association between regional differences in the strength of family ties and patterns of tweeting about family. Results show that the North–South divide is reflected in the frequency of tweets that are about family, that refer to family in the past versus in the present tense, and that are about close versus extended family.

Given that insecure leases impact negatively on ontological security and subjective well-being, and given increasing pressure on European housing markets, more insight into insecure leases is timely. In this article, we assess the occurrence of temporary leases in the city of Amsterdam in 2015, and explore the characteristics of the tenants. We employ hitherto underused local survey data (N = 17,803). Although permanent contracts are still dominant, the majority of young adults aged 18–23 are renters with a temporary lease. Students, those with a Western migration background, those who moved because their previous rental contract was terminated or because the previous dwelling was too expensive, and those who moved from abroad were particularly likely to have a temporary lease. Families were unlikely to have a temporary lease. Given recent developments–in 2016 temporary leases were legally established as a regular tenure in the Netherlands–the number of temporary leases may increase sharply from the reported baseline of 2015.