Friend and Neighbour Ties Among Unpartnered, Childless and ‘Kinless’ Older Adults in Europe

Abstract

Declining fertility, increased geographic mobility and changes in nuclear families have contributed to the rise of older adults who are unpartnered, childless or both unpartnered and childless (‘kinless’). For this growing global population, non-family ties such as friends and neighbours may be particularly important. Although often conflated, friends and neighbours represent distinct ties that often provide different resources, with neighbours being geographically proximal and friends being geographically flexible. Yet, very few cross-national studies distinguish between friends and neighbours, and no study to date has examined these ties among older adults with limited family availability cross-nationally. To address this gap, I analyze social network data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (Wave 6; N = 56,093 respondents across 17 countries) and country-level indicators from multiple sources. Using multivariable logistic regression models, I examine whether older adults lacking partners and/or children are more likely to list a friend compared to a neighbour in their discussion networks and explore how these patterns vary across macro-level contexts. Lacking family is associated with greater reliance on non-family ties, and friend ties are substantially more common than neighbour ties in all countries and contexts. Friend ties are particularly more common for kinless older adults in Northern and Western Europe, especially in higher-GDP contexts. Although neighbour ties are much less common overall, they are more pronounced in lower-GDP and Southern European contexts. These findings highlight heterogeneity in later-life support systems and underscore the importance of both geographically-bounded and geographically-flexible support ties to promote ‘aging in place’ and ‘aging in networks’, respectively.