Download Social Relationships as Resources in Later Life Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
The field of sociology has long acknowledged the importance of social relationships. Some of the most well-known research in sociology on relationships stems from the foundational work of Durkheim (1951), who found those who were socially integrated were less likely to commit suicide than those who were socially isolated. Durkheim's was among the first sociological studies to argue that social relationships are critical to health and wellbeing. Over the last several decades, scholars have begun to parse out casual explanations regarding social relationships and health (House, 1987; House, Landis, and Umberson, 1988; Siebert, Mutran, and Reitzes, 1999). Social support emerged as a key social resource protective of health, shown to be associated with adaptive behaviors, and a buffer to negative health outcomes (Cassel, 1976; Cobb, 1976). More recent sociological research has explored the relevance of social support at different phases of the life course, with a specific focus on later life (Krause, 2006; Pearlin and others, 2005) establishing older adults as proactive in managing their social network to fit their social needs (Carstensen, 1992; Rook, 2009; Streeter and others, 2019). This work acknowledges the contextual forces shaping social support (Elder, Kirkpatrick, and Crosnoe, 2003; Moen and Hernandez, 2009), and shows that social support changes over the life course (Antonucci and Akiyama, 1987). Despite growing attention to social support in sociological research, there are several key gaps in current scholarship that can be addressed by looking to theories and research grounded in other disciplines. Although social support is typically treated as a stable resource (Norris and Kaniasty, 1996; Sarason and others, 1986), much like other resources, growing evidence suggests that social support changes throughout the life course and is likely to be influenced by important role losses and life transitions (Rook, 2009). Understanding the dynamic nature of social support is a necessary step for exploring how it serves as a resource for health. When individuals experience role losses or social losses in later life, the composition of one's social network and frequency of interactions with others are likely to change (Antonucci and others, 2014; Antonucci and Akiyama, 1987; Carstensen, 1992; Pearlin, 2010; Rook, 2009). Sociology alongside scholarship in fields such as psychology, social work, public health, and economics collectively show that role losses related to losing the ability to drive, retirement, widowhood in later life, and life are particularly likely to influence the composition, quality, and frequency of our social interactions and relationships (Chihuri and others, 2016; Lee and Bakk, 2001; Powers, Bisconti, and Bergeman, 2012; Wrzus, Hänel, Wagner, and Neyer, 2013). Understanding the ways these kinds of life course changes relate to changes in our social relationships are critical to understanding how our health is subsequently affected. This dissertation aims to fill gaps in sociological scholarship about changes in dynamic social resources that occur during later life. Specifically, I examine changes to structural and functional support in association with three role losses that have been shown to have important health consequences in later life - the loss of driving (Study #1), retirement (Study #2), and widowhood (Study #3) - and whether the associations between these three role losses in later life and changes in social resources vary by race, class, gender, or marital status.
