Social Disadvantage and Instability in Older Adults' Ties to Their Adult Children.

OBJECTIVE

We examine whether racial and socioeconomic factors influence older adults' likelihood of experiencing instability in their social network ties with their adult children.

BACKGROUND

Recent work shows that socially disadvantaged older adults' social networks are more unstable and exhibit higher rates of turnover, perhaps due to greater exposure to broader social-environmental instability. We consider whether this network instability applies to older adults' ties with their adult children, which are often the closest and most reliable social ties in later life.

METHODS

We use two waves of data from the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (N=1,456), a nationally representative, longitudinal study of older Americans. Through a series of multivariate regression models, we examine how race and education are associated with how frequently older adults reported being in contact with child network members, and how likely older adults were to stop naming their children as network members over time.

RESULTS

African American and less educated individuals reported significantly more frequent contact with their adult child network members than did whites and more educated individuals. Nevertheless, these populations were also more likely to stop naming their children as network confidants over time.

CONCLUSION

African American and less educated older adults are at greater risk of losing access to the supports and other resources that are often provided by adult children, or of not being able to consistently draw on them as they age, despite the fact that these ties demonstrate greater potential for support exchange at baseline.