Hoór Dorottya, Nxumalo Vuyiswa, McGrath Nuala, Seeley Janet, Shahmanesh Maryam, Harling Guy
University College London, UK.
Africa Health Research Institute, South Africa.
J Soc Pers Relat. 2025 May 22;42(9):2493-2515. doi: 10.1177/02654075251337551. eCollection 2025 Sep.
Supportive social relations are crucial to wellbeing as young adults transition to independence, especially when these transitions are impeded by limited employment and educational opportunities, leading to lengthy 'waithoods'. Yet, there is limited empirical evidence on what young adults' support networks look like in highly resource-constrained settings. We therefore analysed the core support networks of 929 16-29 year-old rural South Africans to explore their social support landscape, using descriptive statistics and multilevel regression models. We found that these youth have small but intense support networks, with contacts often providing multiple types of support on a daily basis. While kin and parents are important support sources when present, parents are also frequently missing from these networks. Women received more intense support than men with more kin ties; men's networks contained more friends. While non-kin ties (friends and romantic partners) provide substantial support, they may also be unstable: for young men through dissolution following conflict and for young women due to the transactional nature of romantic relations. These findings imply that where work opportunities are scarce, young people's support networks are smaller and less parentally focused than elsewhere, potentially increasing their fragility and raising the risk of isolation.
在年轻人向独立过渡的过程中，支持性的社会关系对其幸福感至关重要，尤其是当这些过渡因就业和教育机会有限而受阻，导致漫长的“等待期”时。然而，在资源高度有限的环境中，关于年轻人的支持网络状况的实证证据却很有限。因此，我们分析了929名16至29岁南非农村青年的核心支持网络，运用描述性统计和多层次回归模型来探究他们的社会支持情况。我们发现，这些年轻人的支持网络规模虽小但关系紧密，联系人常常每天提供多种类型的支持。亲属和父母在场时是重要的支持来源，但父母也常常不在这些网络中。与男性相比，女性有更多亲属关系，能得到更强烈的支持；男性的网络中有更多朋友。虽然非亲属关系（朋友和恋爱伴侣）能提供大量支持，但它们也可能不稳定：对年轻男性来说，是冲突后关系的解体；对年轻女性来说，是恋爱关系的交易性质。这些发现表明，在工作机会稀缺的地方，年轻人的支持网络比其他地方更小，且较少以父母为中心，这可能会增加其脆弱性，并提高孤立风险。
