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Social networks amongst older people in Europe: a quantitative comparative analysis using the 2001 I

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18 OECD countries, 13 in Europe. European countries/regions. Western Europe. Switzerland ... Within the countries of Europe, is there any relationship between ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Social networks amongst older people in Europe: a quantitative comparative analysis using the 2001 I


1
Social networks amongst older people in Europe a
quantitative comparative analysisusing the 2001
International Social Survey Programme (ISSP)
  • Presentation to the European Sociological
    Association, Conference, Sept. 2007
  • Phil Haynes
  • Reader in Social and Public Policy
  • HSPRC, University of Brighton
  • p.haynes_at_brighton.ac.uk
  • With Professor Michael Hill, and Laura Banks
  • This work is supported by UK ESRC research grant
    RES-000-22-2114

2
International Social Survey (ISSP)
  • 2001 ISSP focus on social networks
  • Our project uses a sub sample
  • aged gt50
  • 18 OECD countries, 13 in Europe

3
European countries/regions
4
Background
  • Importance of social networks to quality of life
    in older age (Auslander Litwin,1990)
  • Social networks linked with social capital
    (Putnam 1995)
  • Some suggestion that stronger social network
    patterns are associated with better health
    (Zunzunegui, 2004 Blumstein, Guralnik
    Walter-Ginzbury, 2004)
  • Important differences within Europe, stronger
    family networks in southern Europe (Millar and
    Warman, 1996 Pickard, 2003)

5
Research Questions
  • What is the relationship between family contact
    and other forms of social networking?
  • Are gender differences in the social networking
    of older people similar in all European
    countries?
  • Within the countries of Europe, is there any
    relationship between attitudes towards family
    based care and the social networking patterns,
    and social policy expenditure, in those countries?

6
Social Networking (ISSP)
  • Participation in community organisations
  • Quantity of close friendships
  • Contacts with close family members other than
    immediate partners
  • Brothers and sisters
  • Adult children

7
Community Participation
  • Seven ordinal scores from questionnaire
  • Measuring participation in unions, politics,
    sport, religion, community, and other local
    groups
  • Strong single factor when combined using
    Principal Components Analysis (PCA)
  • Separate measures developed for work and non work
    based participation

8
Community Participation
9
Predictors of higher community participation
(European sample)
NB Age is not a significant predictor
10
Region - explaining membership of High Community
Participation Score Group
11
Community Participation and Gender
  • Across the European sample men have higher
    community participation scores than women
    (t3.253 df6946 p0.001), but this varies
    between countries.
  • In a few countries, womens average score is
    slightly higher than mens, but this not
    substantive or statistically significant (GB,
    France, Finland and Spain)
  • Regional differences for women in West and East
    (next slide)
  • The only individual country sub sample that has a
    statistically significant difference between
    women and mens scores is the Czech Republic,
    with a noticeable lower level of community
    participation for women (t 2.963 df458 p
    0.003).

12
Odds ratios for being a member of higher
community participation group, computed within
regional sub samples
13
Close Friends Score
14
Close Friends Score and Gender
  • In Europe, womens close friend scores are on
    average higher than mens. But the difference is
    small and not statistically significant.
  • In general, within country differences, in mean
    scores between men and differences are also small
    and not statistically significant
  • In Norway, womens mean scores are significantly
    higher than mens (t -4.401. df586 p0.000)

15
Odds ratios for being a member of higher close
friends group, computed within regional sub
samples
Being an older age does have some decreased
effect on friendship
16
Family Contact Scores
17
Family Contact Score and Gender
  • Womens family contact mean scores are higher
    than men in all countries
  • Except in Hungary and Denmark, (where the small
    opposite differences are not statistically
    significant).

18
Predictors of Higher Family Contact Scores.
European sample, ages 50 and over, with reference
to Southern Europe as compared with residence in
other regions
19
Attitudinal, ordinal scale measures
  • Adult children have a duty to look after elderly
    parents
  • Q. provides some interesting country differences
  • It is right to develop friendships just to be of
    use to you
  • Q. about reciprocal caring relationships
  • doesnt provide much evidence of country
    differences (but Spain and Poland are outliers)
  • The government should provide a decent standard
    of living for the old
  • Q. doesnt provide much evidence of country
    differences, respondents tend to support the
    statement strongly in all countries (but USA and
    Japan have significantly lower scores than
    European countries)

20
Association between family contact and attitudes
to care
21
Conclusion
  • Regional patterns are strong in Europe
  • Relationship with traditional higher public
    spending, N Eur
  • W Eur., mid table, group policy developments to
    blend gov. policy outputs with social network
    outputscash for care
  • Social class has an impact on community
    participation across Europe, and on friendships
    in Eastern Europe
  • No evidence that early retirement amongst all
    social class groups leads to increased community
    participation
  • Evidence of social divide middle class, more
    participation
  • Gender differences differences between north
    and south.
  • South women reporting more family contact
  • North women reporting more closer friendships
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