The proposed research will extend our understanding of the process by which the elderly (those 65+) sort themselves out into types of households viewed as alternatives to traditional nuclear family units. Attention is restricted to those at greatest risk for such living arrangements--unmarried older women. Although previous research has identified a number of sociodemographic, economic and health factors as important determinants of household structure at the older ages, prior efforts have either ignored or only crudely measured variations in the actual availability of each type of alternative arrangement. Yet the range of outcomes possible for any individual is contingent upon the array of available kin which, quite literally, defines opportunities for shared living arrangements. Thus, the proposed research focuses on the effects of family resources--represented by the structure of the surviving kin network--on patterns of living arrangements for older unmarried women. In addition for older women with chronic health care needs, patterns of kin available will be related to patterns of kin involvement in informal caregiving. Other research has demonstrated that such involvement provides the labor-intensive community health care necessary to postpone or prevent admission to a nursing home. The outcome to be studied is multidimensional, taking into account one, whether an older unmarried woman lives alone or with others; two, for those who live alone, the geographic proximity of surviving kin; and three, for the functionally dependent elderly, type of long-term care received. A multinomial logistic specification will allow for such micro-level variations in the set of possible outcomes analyzed. The study will proceed in two phases. During the first phase Shanas' 1975 National Survey of the Aged will be used to estimate models relating kin availability, and other background variables, to household composition/proximity of kin. During the second phase, the 1982 Long-term Care Survey of the Elderly will be used to test models relating kin availability and level of functional dependence to household composition/kin proximity and caregiving mode.
| Soldo, B J; Wolf, D A; Agree, E M (1990) Family, households, and care arrangements of frail older women: a structural analysis. J Gerontol 45:S238-49 |
