Correspondence should be addressed to Marieke Voorpostel, Ph.D, FORS, c/o University of Lausanne, Géopolis, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.
J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci. 2013 Sep;68(5):816-24. doi: 10.1093/geronb/gbt048. Epub 2013 May 20.
This study examined the extent to which older adults in the Netherlands include a nonrelative as part of their family (create fictive kin), and whether this process is similar in other age groups. It assessed the importance of absence of close family ties and the experience of divorce in the family network for the creation of fictive kin.
Using data from the Netherlands Kinship Panel Study, logistic regression models for the different age groups tested the importance of absence of primary family relationships and the experience of divorce in the family among three age groups (18-40, 41-60, 61-79, N = 6,571).
Prevalence of fictive kin relationships was higher in older age groups. Both the absence of close family relationships and the experience of divorce within the family were related to having fictive kin, although the latter was only found in the youngest age group. For older adults never having married, being widowed or divorced were important predictors of having fictive kin relationships.
The study provides support for the idea that the creation of fictive kin is a form of substitution for absent family members and shows that older adults in the Netherlands are active agents in the construction of their family network.
本研究考察了荷兰老年人将非亲属纳入其家庭（虚构亲属）的程度，以及这一过程在其他年龄组是否相似。它评估了缺乏亲密家庭关系和家庭网络中离婚经历对虚构亲属关系形成的重要性。
利用荷兰亲属关系面板研究的数据，对三个年龄组（18-40 岁、41-60 岁、61-79 岁，N=6571）的逻辑回归模型检验了主要家庭关系缺失和家庭离婚经历在虚构亲属关系形成中的重要性。
虚构亲属关系的流行率在老年组更高。亲密家庭关系的缺失和家庭内的离婚经历都与虚构亲属关系有关，尽管后者仅在最年轻的年龄组中发现。对于从未结婚的老年人来说，丧偶或离婚是拥有虚构亲属关系的重要预测因素。
该研究支持了这样一种观点，即虚构亲属关系的形成是对缺失家庭成员的一种替代形式，并表明荷兰的老年人是构建其家庭网络的积极参与者。
