Social Networks of Old People in India

Summary

This article presents a comparative analysis of the available research on the social networks of older persons in India. Most of this research has been done in North Indian cities. The research foci of the available studies include network size, core networks and beyond, life course changes in networks, impacts of residency in old-age homes, gender differences, and joint and nuclear family residence. This research is discussed in terms of its policy implications. Because the research demonstrates that social networks are important for the welfare of older Indians, one can conclude that social policy that encourages the maintenance of robust networks throughout the life course may be worth pursuing. One aspect of policy is discussed. The analysis of the relationship between social network and gender suggests that current policies that can be seen as supporting gender inequality in terms of property may have a negative impact on the networks of older women.     

Gender, aging, poverty and health: Survival strategies of older men and women in Nairobi slums

This paper is based on data from focus group discussions and in-depth individual interviews carried out in two slum areas, Korogocho and Viwandani in Nairobi, Kenya. It discusses how the division between domestic sphere and public sphere impacts on survival during, and adaptation to old age. Although this paper adopts some of the tenets of the life course approach, it posits that women's participation in the domestic sphere may sometimes give them a ‘gender advantage’ over men in terms of health and adaptation to old age. The paper also discusses the impact of gender roles on the cultivation of social networks and how these networks in turn impact on health and social adjustment as people grow older. It investigates how older people are adjusting and coping with the new challenges they face as a result of high morbidity and mortality among adults in the reproductive age groups.     

The subjective dimension of social isolation: A qualitative investigation of older adults' experiences in small social support networks

In the aging literature, social isolation has been primarily defined in terms of reduced support network size and low frequency of social contacts. Having a small social support network is associated with social isolation and an increased risk of physical and emotional vulnerability. However, this conceptualization ignores the contributions of a host of other factors, including life experiences, family dynamics, and long-term patterns of socialization. This paper argues that alongside quantitative assessments of support systems, the application of a life course perspective is needed to understand small social networks as lived experience. We report on findings from 28 in-depth interviews with older adults identified as being at risk of social isolation on the basis of the self-reported size of their social networks. We discuss these participants' experiences in the context of significant life course transitions such as marriage and widowhood.     

Informing family policies: The uses of social research

Like the topic of family policy itself, research informing family policies is difficult to characterize. This article discusses how ideology and values influence research agendas and then describes three types of studies informing family policies: research defining social issues, evaluation research, and research about the policy-making process. Two case studies illustrate how social research informs family policy: in promoting gender equality in Scandinavia and in reforming child support in the United States. Values of individualism and the sanctity of the family have traditionally focused policy makers' and, hence, researchers' attention on individuals, not families, as the units of analysis. But dramatic shifts in family structure and functioning along with renewed public concern about family disintegration are placing families high on the policy agenda. Both “basic” and “applied” family scholars can contribute to a research agenda examining the factors promoting strong, effective families. She conducts research on gender and the life course, as well as on aging, families, and social policy. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Minnesota. Her research interests in stratification, social policy, gender, and the life course include sex segregation in occupations, fertility, and work decisions and family policy.     

In the Best Interest of the (Adult) Child: Ideas About Kinship Care of Older Adults

This article uses a qualitative, ethnographic approach to examine the experiences of older adults and their kin, as the older adult engages in relocation. Studies looking at caregiving by kin for older adults highlight burdens for the adult child. This study offers a life course perspective on kinship care, analyzing older adults’ decisions to move. It was found that many older adults are strongly influenced by the desire to not be solely cared for by their kin, as well as to select housing near their existing social network, which might exclude kin. In conclusion, policy implications are discussed.     

From attitudes to social networks: National gender-role attitudes and gender differences in late-life social relationships

Studies often find gender differences in social networks in later life, but are these findings universal, or do they differ in various cultural contexts? To address this research gap, the current study examines the association between gender differences in social relationships and country-level gender-role attitudes. We combined data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) of individuals aged 50 years and older with country-level data on gender-role attitudes from the European Values Survey (EVS) for 15 European countries. We estimated a series of multivariate hierarchical regression models that predicted the size of the personal social network, its emotional closeness, and the proportion of the spouse, children, and friends in the network. The results indicated gender differences in social network characteristics. Women reported larger social networks and were more likely to have larger proportions of children and friends but smaller proportions of the spouse in their social networks. The magnitude of gender differences was associated with country-level gender-role attitudes. In countries with more egalitarian gender-role attitudes, women had larger networks with a larger proportion of friends compared to men. In countries with more traditional gender-role attitudes, women had larger proportions of their children and spouse in their social networks and had emotionally closer networks. Our findings suggest that the societal context and opportunity structures for social interactions play an important role in shaping the structure of women’s and men’s social relationships in later life.     

Social Capital Across the Life Course: Age and Gendered Patterns of Network Resources1

Despite increasing research interest in network dynamics and cumulative advantage/disadvantage processes, little remains known about how social capital varies across the life course. While some researchers suggest that social capital increases with age and others argue the opposite, this study tests these contradictory assertions by analyzing multiple indicators of social capital from a nationally representative data set on working‐age U.S. respondents. The findings reveal evidence of both social capital accumulation and decline. Social resources from occupational contacts tend to increase with age, but eventually level off among older respondents. Changes in voluntary memberships follow a similar pattern. However, daily social interaction is negatively associated with age. Overall, the results suggest that social capital embedded in occupational networks tends to accumulate across the career, even in the face of a general decline in sociability. The study also uncovers gender differences in these social capital trajectories that are linked to the distinct life experiences of men and women.     

Practising Gender When Networking: The Case of University–Industry Innovation Projects

This paper gains insight into the role of gender in interpersonal networks, which is largely neglected in research on networking. We do so by exploring the concept of ‘practising gender’, the spatial‐temporal accomplishment of gender practices, when people build, maintain and exit social networks. The paper is based on a study of male‐dominated technological collaboration projects between universities and industry. Our analysis of observations of project meetings and interviews with project participants demonstrates how people in real time and space draw from culturally available gender practices in their networking with each other. This practising of gender was found to be done largely unreflexively, sometimes through humour, within allegedly trivial activities such as pouring coffee and socializing as well as in critical activities such as composing the network. The exploration of the practising of gender in relation to culturally available gender practices enabled us to examine how those gender practices are reproduced, stretched or challenged when people network. We show how focussing on the dynamic side of gender allows us to get better insight into how gender inequalities in networks are reproduced or countered on the micro‐interactional level.     

Ambivalence in Later‐Life Family Networks: Beyond Intergenerational Dyads

In later life, changing conditions related to health, partnership, and economic status may trigger not only support but also conflict and ambivalence, with the consequent renegotiation of family ties. The aim of this study is to investigate both conflict and emotional support in the family networks of older adults, taking the research beyond the level of intergenerational dyads. We used a subsample of 563 elders (aged 65 years and older) from the Swiss Vivre/Leben/Vivere survey. Multiple correspondence analysis and in‐depth case studies were used to identify the key social conditions that relate to the prevalence of conflicted and supportive dyads in family networks. Findings showed that the balance of conflict and emotional support in older adults' family networks varied according to the composition of their family network as well as their age, health, income, and gender.     

Good health and the bridging of structural holes

Bridges that span structural holes are often explained in terms of the entrepreneurial personalities or rational motivations of brokers, or structural processes that lead to the intersection of social foci. I argue that the existence and use of bridges in interpersonal networks also depends on individuals’ health. Poor health may make it more difficult to withstand the pressures and to execute some of the common tasks associated with bridging (e.g., brokerage). I examine this possibility using egocentric network data on over 2500 older adults drawn from the recent National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (NSHAP). Multivariate regression analyses show that both cognitive and functional health are significantly positively associated with bridging, net of sociodemographic and life-course controls. The relationship between functional (kinesthetic) health and bridging appears to be partially mediated by network composition, as older adults who have poorer functional health also tend to have networks that are richer in strong ties. Several potential mediation mechanisms are discussed. Cognitive function remains significantly associated with bridging net of network composition, suggesting that the inherent challenges of maintaining bridging positions may be more difficult to cope with for those who have cognitive impairments than for those who have functional impairments such as limited mobility. An alternative explanation is that cognitively impaired individuals have more difficulty recognizing (and thus strategically using) bridges in their networks. Theoretical implications and possibilities for future research are discussed.     

Male-to-Female Transgender Individuals Building Social Support and Capital From Within a Gender-Focused Network

ABSTRACT

The literature on male-to-female transgender myriad problems such individuals face in their day-to-day lives, including high rates of HIV/AIDS, addiction to drugs, violence, and lack of health care. These problems are exacerbated for ethnic and racial minority MTFs. Support available from their social networks can help MTFs alleviate these problems. This article explores how minority MTFs, specifically in an urban environment, develop supportive social networks defined by their gender and sexual identities. Using principles of community-based participatory research (CBPR), 20 African American and Latina MTFs were recruited at a community-based health care clinic. Their ages ranged from 18 to 53. Data were coded and analyzed following standard procedure for content analysis. The qualitative interviews revealed that participants formed their gender and sexual identities over time, developed gender-focused social networks based in the clinic from which they receive services, and engaged in social capital building and political action. Implications for using CBPR in research with MTFs are discussed.     

Neighborhood conditions and social network turnover among older adults

Increasing research highlights heterogeneity in patterns of social network change, with growing evidence that these patterns are shaped in part by social structure. The role of social and structural neighborhood conditions in the addition and loss of kin and non-kin network members, however, has not been fully considered. In this paper, we argue that the residential neighborhood context can either facilitate or prevent the turnover of core network relationships in later life – a period of the life course characterized by heightened reliance on network ties and vulnerability to neighborhood conditions. Using longitudinal data from the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project linked with data from the American Community Survey, we find that higher levels of neighborhood concentrated disadvantage are associated with the loss of older adults’ kin and non-kin network members over time. Higher levels of perceived neighborhood social interaction, however, are associated with higher rates of adding non-kin network members and lower rates of adding kin network members over time. We suggest that neighborhood conditions, including older adults’ perceptions of neighborhood social life, represent an underexplored influence on kin and non-kin social network dynamics, which could have implications for access to social resources later in the life course.     

Network analysis in the study of gender differences

This article aims at evaluating how network analysis can contribute to studies on gender differences as also considered in different ethnic contexts. The article shows how the concept of network can be used in new ways and discusses the theoretical foundations of the two main research traditions in this field: (1) on one hand, the anthropological development of social networks within the framework of a situational and processual analytical interpretation; (2) on the other hand, the development of the mathematical and quantitative analysis of the relations between the individual units of the social system, within the framework of a structural analytical interpretation. The paper analyses some of the most interesting contributions of each tradition to show their differences with regard to theoretical elaboration, investigation perspectives and objects, and methods and techniques. It ends by identifying the areas in gender research to which each research tradition can be most appropriately applied.     

Jaccard-Spline index of structural proximity in contact networks

Network analysts are increasingly being called upon to apply their expertise to groups for which the only available or reliable data is a contact network. With no opportunity to gather additional data, the merits of such applications depend on empirical studies that validate the employment of structural constructs based on contact networks. Fortunately, we possess such studies in abundance. One of the strongest research traditions in social network analysis is the development of formal constructs that may be employed in analyses of networks. I suggest that greater insight into predictive success of network constructs may be acquired by addressing the following question: what features of the contact network in which a dyad is situated allow the prediction of other relations with an accuracy that validates the imputation of the latter given data on the former? In this article, I present findings on the structural contexts of dyads in contact networks and the relationship of these contexts with two fundamental forms of cohesive cognitive relations—accorded interpersonal influence and perceived interpersonal agreement. Based on these findings, I formalize a measure of structural proximity in contact networks with values that correspond to the conditional probabilities of these two forms of cohesive cognitive relations. The substantive settings of this analysis are policy groups with members who are embedded in contact structures based on regular interpersonal communication on policy issues and cognitive structures based on perceived interpersonal agreement and accorded interpersonal influence.     

Life-Stage and Mobility: An Exploratory GPS Study of Mobility in Multigenerational Families,Ahmedabad, India

As the population of older adults in India grows, research is needed to plan a sustainable future for India’s older adults. This article reports results from a Global Positioning System (GPS)–based pilot study that examined the mobility of middle-class, older adults living in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India. Using mobility as a lens through which to examine the lives of older adults, we map potential research and identify policy areas of interest considering older adults in urban India. The study explores the role of life stage in mobility as well as the effects of gender and urban environment on mobility. Using this distinctive perspective on day-to-day life, we propose themes through which, using policy and planning tools, the living environments of older adults in Indian cities can be improved. These policy measures include focusing on walkability and pedestrian safety in residential areas and building on existing mixed land use to create high accessibility to goods and services in urban environments.     

From Resistance to Activis m: The Emergence and Persistence of Activism among American Vietnam War Resisters in Canada

The concept of ‘emergent ties’ is often used to refer to the role of social networks in activating social movements. Yet pre-existing network ties were usually not a factor in initiating decisions of 50,000 draft-age American youth to migrate to Canada during the American Vietnam War. These youth often learned about the possibility of migrating to Canada through the news media and a widely distributed draft resistance manual. Once in Canada, they often became involved in networks that directed and sustained their movement activity. This suggests that the emergence and persistence of activism may often be distinct. This paper argues that a transformation process that leads to activism is often a life stage specific process, usually in late adolescence or early adulthood, whose explanation requires detailed attention to everyday behavioral activity; while the evolution and persistence of activism is often a life course persistent process that covers a longer period and involves the influence of more generically structured network ties. These patterns are demonstrated in a fuzzy set analysis (FSA) of early and longer term political activism in the lives of Americans who migrated to Toronto during the Vietnam War. We find that for both men and women, helping others was a necessary experience in transforming the resistance involved in this migration into collectively organized anti-war activism, and that a longer term tendency of the women who migrated to Canada to remain more involved than men in social movements is a product of their continuing contacts with the persons involved in their earlier activism. The results of our research underline the importance of distinguishing life stage specific and life course persistent processes in the study of social movements, and more generally that the study of social movements and the life course have much to contribute to one another.     

Fostering social capital in an international multi-stakeholder issue network

Scholars have theorized that public relations contributes to societies and communities by bringing attention to pressing public issues and fostering social capital in civil society networks. However, the extant research has studied civil society networks of NGOs, donors, and the media in transitional countries. This study extends the public relations model of civil society in two ways. First, it broadens the scope to an international context. Second, it draws from the multi-stakeholder issue network perspective to conceptualize a civil society network as a space where stakeholders of an issue mix their interests as they collectively address a pressing public issue. The literature on international and multi-stakeholder networks suggest that the international scope and the mixing of interests across sectors may restrict the production of social capital. The results from the social network analysis suggests that the mixing of interests across sectoral and geopolitical boundaries did not restrict the production of social capital. Rather, the patterns of the relationships among those on the core and those on the periphery of the network restricted the production of social capital. Such finding demonstrates how public relations’ functions like relationship building can have profound influences on social capital and civil society networks. The implications for public relations theorizing and research are discussed.     

Family Matters: Research on Family Ties and Health, 2010 to 2020

Family ties have wide-ranging consequences for health, for better and for worse. This decade review uses a life course perspective to frame significant advances in research on the effects of family structure and transitions (e.g., marital status) and family dynamics and quality (e.g., emotional support from family members) on health across the life course. Significant advances include the linking of childhood family experiences to health at older ages, identification of biosocial processes that explain how family ties influence health throughout life, research on social contagion showing how family members influence one another's health, and attention to diversity in family and health dynamics, including gender, sexuality, socioeconomic, and racial diversity. Significant innovations in methods include dyadic and family-level analysis and causal inference strategies. The review concludes by identifying directions for future research on families and health, advocating for a “family biography” framework to guide future research, and calling for more research specifically designed to assess policies that affect families and their health from childhood into later life.     

A Mixed‐Methods Social Networks Study Design for Research on Transnational Families

This paper advocates the adoption of a mixed‐methods research design to describe and analyze ego‐centered social networks in transnational family research. Drawing on the experience of the “Social Networks Influences on Family Formation” project (2004–2005; see Bernardi, Keim, & von der Lippe, 2007a, 2007b ), I show how the combined use of network generators and semistructured interviews (N = 116) produces unique data on family configurations and their impact on life course choices. A mixed‐methods network approach presents specific advantages for research on children in transnational families. On one hand, quantitative analyses are crucial for reconstructing and measuring the potential and actual relational support available to children in a context where kin interactions may be hindered by temporary and prolonged periods of separation. On the other hand, qualitative analyses can address strategies and practices employed by families to maintain relationships across international borders and geographic distance, as well as the implications of those strategies for children's well‐being.