Flexibility, friendship, and family

Abstract

This article is concerned with the impact of late modernity on patterns of solidarity in friend and family relationships. It takes as its starting point the transformations in partnership, family, and household formation and dissolution that have been occurring in Western societies since the 1970s. Accepting these shifts as indicative of the greater freedoms people now have over the construction of their personal relationships and social networks, the article examines the degree to which the domains of family and friendship are merging. Its principal argument is that despite increased flexibility in the construction of personal life, including diversity in the prioritization of different relationships, at a cultural level clear boundaries exist between family and friendship ties.

Cohort differences in having and retaining friends in personal networks in later life

“…A combination of economic changes, increasing individualization and loosening of ties to traditional sources of social embedding has resulted in greater freedom of choice in developing significant personal relationships, lifestyles, and identities. Since friendship is by definition a relationship based on personal choice, scholars have argued that friendship has increased in importance as a source of support, companionship and confirmation of identity during the last decades (Allan, 2001(Allan, , 2008Pahl & Pevalin, 2005). If friendship has indeed increased in importance, we expected it to have become more prevalent and remain more prevalent in personal networks of older adults.…”

“…An individual's structural location, determined by age, gender, social class, and ethnicity, will influence the extent to which he or she is influenced by the greater choices in lifestyles and personal relationships. The socio-cultural changes that have been described were observable by the mid 1970s (Allan, 2008). The current study concerns Dutch older adults from different birth cohorts, i.e., from 1908 to 1937, who have been followed for 17 years.…”

“…Since the majority of the younger cohort was still married and the percentage of women who have worked was higher within this cohort than in older cohorts, these men and women will have had easier access to crosssex friendship. Allan (2008) has indicated that cross-sex friendships have become more acceptable recently. Thus, hypothesis 4 is that persons in the younger cohort are more likely to have cross-sex friendships and maintain cross-sex friendships than are persons in the older cohorts.…”

Mapping the Future of Family Care: Receipt of Informal Care by Older People with Disabilities in England to 2032

“…On the one hand, there is evidence of a growing 'fusion between kith and kin' Spencer, 2004, 2010: 10) and that people are 'substituting the ties of friendship for those of blood' (Roseneil, 2004: 413). On the other hand, it is argued that boundaries still exist between family and friends, and that family members are likely to be more involved than friends when the support needed by older people becomes more extensive or intimate (Allan, 2008;Twigg, 2000). An increasingly important role for more distant relatives and friends in the care of older people with disabilities in future is, therefore, somewhat speculative.…”

Friendship, Gender and Sexual Experience: Retrospective Narratives about the Formation of a Sexual Self during Youth

“…Although sociological literature on friendship is not very extensive, the subject has attracted greater interest in recent decades, being recognised as a worthy topic of investigation that helps to shed light on the changes occurring in late modern societies (Jamieson et al 2006;Allan 2011;Allan 2008;Adams & Allan 1998;Pahl 2000;Spencer & Pahl 2006). This growing recognition of the importance of friendship is related to its putative features, deployed in Western thought since the 18th century, and crystallised in ideological assumptions that become visible when people express their expectations surrounding friendship, such as free choice, trust, affection, reciprocity, commitment, help, emotional and instrumental support (Pahl 2000;Spencer & Pahl 2006;Allan 1989;Allan 1996; Adams & Allan Despite these major contributions to the conceptualisation of friendship as a specific form of intimacy that makes it a key element in interpreting social change, most sociological reflection has centred on its relations with other forms of intimate ties, namely kinship and family, and the ways in which it helps to reshape the boundaries of personal life (Jamieson et al 2006;Spencer & Pahl 2006, among others).…”