Taylor Robert Joseph, Chatters Linda M, Skipper Antonius D, Ellis James
School of Social Work, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan.
School of Public Health, School of Social Work, University of Michigan.
Annu Rev Gerontol Geriatr. 2021;41(1):1-31.
Fictive kin are individuals who are not related biologically or legally family members but are conferred all of the expectations, obligations, norms, and behaviors that are typically associated with family members. Early ethnographic and qualitative studies on impoverished African Americans depicted fictive kinship as a strategy of necessity used by urban poor Blacks to share scarce resources. More recent surveys of fictive kin relationships based on nationally representative samples of African Americans establish that fictive kinship occur across a range of social and economic circumstances. However, fictive kin relationships among African Americans older adults remains an understudied area. The current study explores fictive kinship relationships (having fictive kin and receiving support from fictive kin) among African American, Black Caribbean, and non-Hispanic white older adults using data from the National Survey of American Life. We examined race/ethnicity and gender differences, as well as demographic and social network correlates. Findings showed that having and receiving support from fictive kin varied across race, ethnicity and gender. African Americans were more likely to have fictive kin than were non-Hispanic whites, but there were no overall race/ethnic differences in receiving support from fictive kin. Gender specific findings showed that Black Caribbean women received fictive kin support more frequently than African American and non-Hispanic white women. Finally, demographic and social network correlates of fictive kin varied by race and ethnicity and connections with social networks (family, friend, church members) were positively associated with having and receiving support from fictive kin.
拟亲属是指那些既没有生物学上的亲属关系，也不是法律意义上的家庭成员，但却被赋予了通常与家庭成员相关的所有期望、义务、规范和行为的个体。早期对贫困非裔美国人的人种志和定性研究将拟亲属关系描述为城市贫困黑人用来共享稀缺资源的一种必要策略。最近基于非裔美国人全国代表性样本对拟亲属关系的调查表明，拟亲属关系存在于一系列社会和经济环境中。然而，非裔美国老年人中的拟亲属关系仍然是一个研究不足的领域。当前的研究利用美国生活全国调查的数据，探讨了非裔美国人、加勒比黑人以及非西班牙裔白人老年人中的拟亲属关系（拥有拟亲属并从拟亲属那里获得支持）。我们研究了种族/族裔和性别差异，以及人口统计学和社会网络方面的相关因素。研究结果表明，拥有拟亲属并从拟亲属那里获得支持的情况在种族、族裔和性别方面存在差异。非裔美国人比非西班牙裔白人更有可能拥有拟亲属，但在从拟亲属那里获得支持方面，总体上不存在种族/族裔差异。特定性别的研究结果表明，加勒比黑人女性比非裔美国女性和非西班牙裔白人女性更频繁地获得拟亲属的支持。最后，拟亲属的人口统计学和社会网络相关因素因种族和族裔而异，并且与社会网络（家人、朋友、教会成员）的联系与拥有拟亲属并从拟亲属那里获得支持呈正相关。
