Patterns of sibling and friend relationships in middle and old age: a personal network approach

Abstract

This project aims to examine what structural factors contribute to the importance of friend and sibling relationships and their qualities in middle and old age. The ageing population is growing across societies. With the structural changes in families, such as marital dissolution, declining fertility rates, and ageing parents, the roles that siblings and friends play in shaping an individual's well-being and maintaining their sense of belonging to the family and society are as important as those of other close family ties. To explore the involvement of siblings and friends in personal lives during middle and old age, this study examines factors associated with the presence of siblings and friends in one's core discussion network (i.e., a type of personal networks which consist of strong ties) as well as the qualities of these relationships.

Studies on support exchange have shown that individuals' gender, marital status, and family structure are important factors in explaining support behaviours in personal lives. To enhance the understanding of the interdependence between sibling and other kin ties, this thesis begins by examining the presence and quality of sibling relations and their association with other core kin relations in one's core discussion network. Additionally, this thesis investigates the extent to which these interdependences vary across countries to comprehend potential societal level differences. Given the significant influence of gender on shaping personal relationships, this thesis examines the association between the importance of sibling relationships, their gender composition, and their relations with other core kin ties. Finally, this study explores the relationship between engagement in social activities and the inclusion of new friends in personal networks, while also examining to what extent these new friends belong to the same birth cohorts at two points in time. To address these questions, various quantitative methods, including multilevel modelling techniques, are utilised to model personal network data from the Survey for Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). This longitudinal panel study allows for analysing not only the network size and identifying the network composition, but also the characteristics of each social network member and the quality of their relationships.

The study yielded several noteworthy findings: First, the likelihoods of having a sibling in the core discussion network is higher when one’s parent(s) is also present in the network, but likelihoods are lower for people who have partner and children present in the network. People who live in Northern and Central European countries are more likely to consider their sibling as core discussion network members than their counterparts in Southern and Eastern Europe. Yet, in Southern Europe, people are more likely to maintain frequent contact with their siblings than their counterparts in Northern Europe. There is also variation in the co-presence of sibling and other kin members in personal networks across countries. In most Southern European countries, the manifestation of solidarity between siblings is more likely to take the form of frequent contact compared to other countries.

Secondly, women play a crucial role in maintaining sibling solidarity across different family structures. When comparing sister pairs and brother pairs, sisters tend to exhibit higher probabilities of frequent contact than brothers. The only exception occurs when brothers have frequent contact with their mothers. In this scenario, the probabilities of frequent contact do not differ between sisters and brothers. Additionally, sisters are more likely to be contacted frequently by both men and women who have remarried after experiencing divorce or widowhood. This implies that sisters are more involved in their siblings' lives than brothers overall, even after the other experiences a relationship transition. Finally, individuals who start to participate in every social activity between two waves are consistently more likely to nominate new friends in the later wave than people who do not participate any activities. In contrast, those who cease participation in community groups in the later wave or consistently engage in community or politics-centred activities do not exhibit a higher likelihood of making new friends than non-participants. This thesis concludes that a more comprehensive understanding of sibling and friend ties can be achieved by studying them in the context of personal networks.