Changes in support networks in late middle age: the extension of gender and educational differences.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

This paper tests whether differences by gender and by educational attainment in contact with friends and family and in support expected from friends and family narrow or widen in late middle age.

Methods

The data are drawn from about 4,800 members of the Wisconsin Longitudinal Survey who answered questions about their frequency of contact with social ties and expectations of 3 kinds of help in both 1993, when they were in their early 50s, and again in 2004.

Results

Using lagged dependent variable models, we find that between their 50s and 60s women's network advantages over men and college graduates' network advantages over high school graduates in frequency of social contact widened. The same was roughly true as well for expectations of social support, alt

SUBMITTER: Fischer CS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4342723 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature