Abstract
Age segregation—the widespread separation of people by age—is deemed by many gerontologists a major problem in contemporary societies. Contributing to this dialog, the current exploratory article examines the presence of non-kin members in European seniors’ close personal networks. Specifically, we document network connections to people outside of their 10-year birth cohort, both younger (“downward” age integration) and older (“upward” age integration). We consider whether different aspects of social participation—breadth and intensity of activity, and specific types of participation—are associated with age integration and we pay particular attention to variation across four regions of the continent. Analyses use Wave 6 of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (N = 34,282) which contains an updated social networks module. Results of descriptive analyses and logistic regression models demonstrate three key findings. First, both forms of age integration are rare—fewer than 10% of older Europeans have non-kin networks that extend beyond their own cohorts. Nevertheless, both forms of age integration tend to be higher in northern and central Europe than in the south and east. Second, two dimensions of formal social activity involvement were associated with age integration, namely activity breadth and intensity. Third, though there was some evidence that particular formal activities were linked to age integration, this pattern was not consistent across the whole of Europe. Overall, findings point to the significance of cultural and organizational variation across Europe as well as to important and increasingly relevant social cleavages in the later segments of adulthood.
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Notes
In brief, the theory of focused activity contends that a “social, psychological, legal, or physical entity around which joint activities are organized” (e.g., a club, voluntary association, educational class) brings people together and forms the basis of people’s social networks (Feld 1981, p. 1016).
Criteria for capturing inter-cohort integration vary in the existing literature. Uhlenberg and Gierveld (2004), for instance, used a looser definition of “younger network member”, defining them as being five or more years younger than the respondent.
Again, past research uses different criteria for determining regular contact (e.g., “weekly” in Uhlenberg and Gierveld (2004). We see the weekly benchmark as potentially too restrictive.
Results are consistent when we include those network members demonstrating a patient-client or provider-patron relationship with the respondent.
Given the name generator is capped at 7 confidants, we are aware of the possibility that one who does not list a younger/older confidant may actually have one such person in their personal network but beyond the list. Nevertheless, with the data at hand, we are examining if a younger/older confidant can make it into the “top seven”. Thus, general estimates of age integration in close networks should be interpreted as conservative ones.
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Appendix
Appendix
See Tables 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and Fig. 2.
Overall levels of upward and downward age integration across regions and countries for seniors age 60–79, conditional on having at least one non-kin confidant
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Sun, H., Schafer, M.H. Age integration in older Europeans’ non-kin core networks: Does formal social participation play a role?. Eur J Ageing 16, 455–472 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10433-019-00507-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10433-019-00507-z