Why is zero padding needed in sockaddr_in?

I googled it and some people says "To keep the same size with struct sockaddr". But Kernel will not use sockaddr directly(right?). When using it. kernel will cast it back to what it is. So why is zero padding needed?

struct sockaddr {
    unsigned short    sa_family;    // address family, AF_xxx
    char              sa_data[14];  // 14 bytes of protocol address
};

struct sockaddr_in {
    short            sin_family;   // e.g. AF_INET, AF_INET6
    unsigned short   sin_port;     // e.g. htons(3490)
    struct in_addr   sin_addr;     // see struct in_addr, below
    char             sin_zero[8];  // zero this if you want to
};

struct in_addr {
    unsigned long s_addr;          // load with inet_pton()
};