Longino C F, Lipman A
Int J Aging Hum Dev. 1982;15(4):285-97. doi: 10.2190/u7vn-ae4y-0ker-ctt7.
This paper explores the nature of informal support given to older women, depending upon their marital status and the presence of living children. To control for differential availability of formal resources and for background characteristics, random samples of 371 noninstitutionalized female residents of two midwestern life care communities were interviewed. We found, unsurprisingly, that women who were presently, or who had been married, received more emotional, social, and instrumental support from their family members. But in further analysis it became clear, much to our surprise, that the presence of a husband only assured the married women of significantly more instrumental (task-oriented) support. It was the existence of living children--even just one child--that generated greater emotional, social, and instrumental support from her family. The greatest informal support deficits are among the never married, as expected, but are a result of the lack of children rather than the absence of a husband.
本文探讨了根据老年女性的婚姻状况和在世子女情况给予她们的非正式支持的性质。为了控制正式资源的不同可得性以及背景特征，对两个中西部生活照料社区的371名非机构化女性居民进行了随机抽样访谈。不出所料，我们发现，目前已婚或曾经结过婚的女性从家庭成员那里得到了更多情感、社交和实际支持。但在进一步分析中，令我们大为惊讶的是，丈夫的存在仅确保已婚女性获得显著更多的实际（任务导向型）支持。是在世子女的存在——哪怕只有一个孩子——使她从家人那里获得了更多情感、社交和实际支持。正如预期的那样，最大的非正式支持不足存在于从未结婚的女性中，但这是缺乏子女而非没有丈夫导致的。
