Marriage, Social Integration, and Loneliness in the Second Half of Life

Stevens, Nan; Westerhof, Gerben Johan

doi:10.1177/0164027506291747

Cited by 55 publications

(62 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…Pinquart (2003) y Peters y Liefbroer (1997) las encuentran entre aquellas que no están casadas: los varones sienten más soledad que las mujeres al acusar sobremanera la pérdida de la pareja y tener más problemas para llevar una vida autónoma. Sin embargo, no las hallan significativas entre las personas casadas, lo cual contradice a lo apuntado por otros autores: el sentimiento de soledad, consideran Stevens y Westerhof (2006), afecta más a los varones también en el matrimonio dado que las mujeres disponen de más variedad de redes sociales para lograr compañía y apoyo. Kamiya et al (2014), por su parte, afirman que entre las personas mayores no casadas los varones sufren más la soledad, mientras que entre las casadas lo hacen las mujeres.…”

Section: El Estado Civil Factor Determinante Del Sentimiento De Soledadunclassified

El sentimiento de soledad en la vejez

Doblas

Conde

2018

Rev. int. sociol.

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ResumenNuestro objetivo es indagar sobre uno de los problemas sociales que más afectan a las personas mayores, el sentimiento de soledad, distinguiendo entre las dimensiones emocional y social. Utilizando una estrategia metodológica cualitativa, con el grupo de discusión como técnica de producción de información y la teoría fundamentada como técnica de análisis, investigamos acerca de cómo lo experimentan las personas mayores viudas que viven solas, que constituyen un grupo de población que lo sufre especialmente. Hemos constatado que padecen soledad emocional, sobre todo, quienes enviudan a edad avanzada, tras varias décadas de matrimonio. Es un sentimiento ligado al vacío conyugal, con la noche como marco de aparición más propenso. Además, enviudar conlleva el riesgo de sufrir soledad social, debido al distanciamiento relacional que suele producirse con las amistades matrimoniales. También hemos apreciado diferencias de género en la incidencia del sentimiento de soledad, con una especial fragilidad de los varones para combatirlo. PalabRas ClaveMetodología cualitativa; Soledad emocional; Soledad social; Vida en solitario; Viudedad. abstRaCtOur purpose is to look into one of the social problems affecting the most to older people, namely the feeling of loneliness. We intend to approach this problem differ-entiating its social and emotional dimensions. Through a qualitative methodological strategy -focus groups as procedure to raise data and Grounded Theory as ana-lytical perspective-we study how that feeling is expe-rienced among a profile of older persons particularly affected by loneliness: older widowed persons living alone. Our findings prove that these persons suffer from emotional loneliness, especially those who enter wid-owhood at a later age and after decades of marriage. This feeling is linked to the loss of their spouse and it is at night when it is more likely to emerge. Moreover, wid-owhood comes along with the risk of social loneliness because of the relational distancing from friends who used to be connected to the married couple. We have identified as well gender differences regarding the im-pact of loneliness, being men those who are especially frail to confront it.

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Section: El Estado Civil Factor Determinante Del Sentimiento De Soledadunclassified

El sentimiento de soledad en la vejez

Doblas

Conde

2018

Rev. int. sociol.

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“…For men, their spouses often fulfill the link to their network of family and friends (Antonucci, 2001). In addition, men more strongly rely on their spouse for social support, whereas women derive support from family, friends, and neighbors in addition to their partner (Antonucci & Akiyama, 1987;Cutrona, 1996;Stevens & Westerhof, 2006). Based on these gender differences, women will be especially restricted in their activities to maintain social relationships because of own and spousal disability.…”

Section: Effects Of Own and Spousal Disability On Social Lonelinessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of Own and Spousal Disability on Loneliness Among Older Adults

Korporaal¹,

Groenou²,

Tilburg³

2008

J Aging Health

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Objectives: This study examines the effects of own and spousal disability on social and emotional loneliness among married adults aged 65 and older. Method: Data from 710 men and 379 women of a Dutch community sample were analyzed with linear regression analyses. Results: For men, only their wives' disability was related to higher levels of social loneliness, whereas for women mainly their own disability was related to higher levels of social loneliness. Own disability and spousal disability were related to higher levels of emotional loneliness among both men and women. Effects of disability remained unaffected after controlling for characteristics of the social network and the marital relationship. Discussion: Findings underscore the importance of considering effects of both spouses' health on measures of individual well-being. Also, the traditional division of social roles makes older married men relatively vulnerable to social loneliness when their wives suffer from disability.

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“…Another point is that we were not able to draw direct comparisons between countries since we did not have access to data using the same instruments from the United States, as we had in the comparison with Germany (Stevens & Westerhof, 2006). The measures involved in this study are typical of those used in large surveys (Acitelli & Antonucci, 1994;Gurung et al, 2003).…”

Section: Shortcomingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Partners and others: Social provisions and loneliness among married Dutch men and women in the second half of life

Stevens¹,

Westerhof²

2006

Journal of Social and Personal Relationships

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The main goal of this article was to test whether the perceived availability of social provisions within and outside marriage in a representative Dutch sample of men and women in late adulthood would differ from findings from similar studies in the United States. We predicted that there would be more similarity between married men and women in self-reported social relationships, social provisions, and loneliness in the more feminine culture of The Netherlands than is often reported in research from the United States, where the dominant culture is more masculine. Data are from the Dutch Aging survey that involved a representative sample of 983 people between the ages of 40 and 85. As predicted, we found similarity between men and women in the size and composition of core networks, the provision of emotional support to and from the partner, and in the provision of instrumental support to others. Contrary to our hypothesis, women exchanged more emotional support with friends, children, and other family and identified these persons more often as companions in leisure activities. Despite the women’s greater reported involvement in other relationships, these men were not lonelier than were women. For both men and women, social provisions from close relationships beyond the partner relation contributed to alleviating loneliness.

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Marriage, Social Integration, and Loneliness in the Second Half of Life

Cited by 55 publications

References 20 publications

El sentimiento de soledad en la vejez

El sentimiento de soledad en la vejez

Effects of Own and Spousal Disability on Loneliness Among Older Adults

Partners and others: Social provisions and loneliness among married Dutch men and women in the second half of life

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