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For older adults, having more or closer family members in one's social network decreases his or her likelihood of death, but having a larger or closer group of friends does not, finds a new study that will be presented at the 111th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA).
"We found that older individuals who had more family in their network, as well as older people who were closer with their family were less likely to die," said James Iveniuk, the lead author of the study and a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Toronto's Dalla Lana School of Public Health. "No such associations were observed for number of or closeness to friends."
[...] In the first wave, these older adults were asked to list up to five of their closest confidants, describe in detail the nature of each relationship, and indicate how close they felt to each person. Excluding spouses, the average number of close confidants named was 2.91, and most older adults perceived high levels of support from their social contacts. Additionally, most respondents were married, in good physical health, and reported not being very lonely.
Iveniuk and co-author L. Philip Schumm, a senior biostatistician at the University of Chicago, found that older adults who reported feeling "extremely close" on average to the non-spousal family members they listed as among their closest confidants had about a six percent risk of mortality within the next five years, compared to approximately a 14 percent risk of mortality among those who reported feeling "not very close" to the family members they listed.
Furthermore, the study found that respondents who listed more non-spousal family members in their network—irrespective of closeness—had lower odds of death compared to those who listed fewer family members. "Regardless of the emotional content of a connection, simply having a social relationship with another person may have benefits for longevity," Iveniuk said.
Iveniuk said he was surprised that feeling closer to one's family members and having more relatives as confidants decreased the risk of death for older adults, but that the same was not true of relationships with friends.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @06:51PM
The problem with not wanting children is: as you get older, who is going to change your diaper?
I'm sure you'd prefer not to think about such things. Because being young lasts forever. And bad things that happen to some other people could never happen to you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @06:56PM
The solution: shoot up someplace before arthritis sets in.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @07:29PM
With lead, or heroin?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @07:37PM
The problem with not wanting children is: as you get older, who is going to change your diaper?
If necessary, you could hire someone to do so. Having children is also no guarantee that they will take care of you. Additionally if someone doesn't really want children but just has some so they'll be taken care of when they're older, do you actually believe they would be good parents? Have you even thought this through?
This line of thinking is also selfish, which is an accusation often directed at people who choose not to have children.
I'm sure you'd prefer not to think about such things. Because being young lasts forever.
Sounds like a position absolutely no one holds. Nice try, but I know from experience that that isn't true.
And bad things that happen to some other people could never happen to you.
On the other hand, just because bad things happen to other people doesn't mean they'll happen to you. It's a gamble, and if you have children, you experience the drawbacks of having children for sure (especially people who don't even want them), and there's no guarantee they'll take care of you in your old age.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @09:59PM
Uhhh, do you have any idea how expensive that would be? I'm not going to post any links for that as I can almost guarantee that you will crap your pants when you find out. Yeah, you could stay in a relatively "inexpensive" nursing facility, but you would be well advised that you get what you pay for.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @11:19PM
Uhhh, do you have any idea how expensive that would be? I'm not going to post any links for that as I can almost guarantee that you will crap your pants when you find out.
It's an option for people with money, not everyone.
Yeah, you could stay in a relatively "inexpensive" nursing facility, but you would be well advised that you get what you pay for.
You could say the same thing about children, since many will send you to a nursing home, do nothing for you, or do a very poor job of taking care of you. These things are more likely to happen if you have kids just so someone might take care of you when you're older, since such people didn't really want kids and are therefore more likely to be bad parents, so the kids will be less willing to take care of you in the first place. That's part of why it's an incredibly dumb plan; it's a gamble that probably won't pay off, and it comes with the countless drawbacks that having kids has.
(Score: 2) by Taibhsear on Tuesday August 23 2016, @03:26PM
Uhhh, do you have any idea how expensive that would be?
Considerably less than raising a child.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @10:17PM
Are you sure about that? First, there is what people say and then there is what people do. If you look at people's actions then it would appear that quite a few believe they will live forever and in good health. For example, there are a shocking number of people who don't bother saving for retirement, despite incentives from the government and, in many cases, from their employers to do so. Also, how many people do you know who have long term care insurance? Eh, what's that? You never heard of such a thing? Yeah, I thought so. Just to cut you off at the pass, yes, you will need both. If memory serves, a shocking ~50% of people will not make it to full retirement age before they are forced out of the labour market. I don't even want to review for you here the shocking statistics regarding end of life health care costs ; suffice to say, they are scary. So, yes, it looks to me like a lot of people are living in denial about their mythical eternal youth.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @11:24PM
Are you sure about that?
Pretty sure.
First, there is what people say and then there is what people do.
There's a difference between not knowing about negative consequences and failing to take action to stop them from happening.
But again, having kids would not necessarily pay off, especially if you had them for such a self-serving reason. People who don't want kids would most likely be miserable if they did have them, so they'd also have years of misery to look forward to. That stress can't be good for them. It's just not a good solution for the problems that come with being old.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 23 2016, @01:56AM
Are you really claiming that people don't know that they will one day grow old and die? Seriously?!?
"I got mine. To hell with the rest of you!" ????
*Chuckle* It looks like the children of the baby boomers learned their lessons well. ;-)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Monday August 22 2016, @09:18PM
The problem with not wanting children is: as you get older, who is going to change your diaper?
The people working at your nursing home, that's who.
It's not fair to expect your adult children to both raise their own kids, and also somehow find time to take care of you, and also hold down full-time jobs. Most don't; they simply can't, and not all kids actually care that much about their parents anyway. There's absolutely no shortage of horror stories about selfish asshole kids fighting over the inheritance.
If you're worried about companionship and care-taking in your old age, a better idea is to forge relationships with people in your own age group and make some kind of group that will live together in retirement and look after each other. Expecting the younger generations to be at your beck and call is selfish and foolhardy.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Monday August 22 2016, @10:03PM
With what nursing home staff get paid, that daiper won't get changed more than once a day.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday August 23 2016, @04:38PM
Then spend more money on a better nursing home. Problem solved.
If you're worried that'll cost too much, no problem: don't have any kids, and save up the money you saved by not raising kids in a good retirement account. You'll probably do a lot better than relying on your kids to tend to you 24/7 in your old age.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday August 22 2016, @10:08PM
It's not fair to expect your adult children to both raise their own kids, and also somehow find time to take care of you, and also hold down full-time jobs.
I agree it's not fair to expect that, but one would hope that many if not most kids would try to help older family members when they can. That said, I agree with you that GP's argument about having kids just to have someone to take care of you when you're older is disturbing. That's not a good reason to have kids. I had a conversation a few years back with a close friend who had one kid -- but his wife wanted to have one more, primarily because she was concerned that the single child would be "more burdened" taking care of parents in old age and wanted to spread out that responsibility... which I found to be a truly bizarre reason to insist on raising another kid. (If nothing else, I'd recommend socking the money you'd spend on another kid away in an investment account, and you'll likely have money to have a much more luxurious retirement and care as you age, rather than burdening the unborn before they are even conceived.)
If you're worried about companionship and care-taking in your old age, a better idea is to forge relationships with people in your own age group and make some kind of group that will live together in retirement and look after each other. Expecting the younger generations to be at your beck and call is selfish and foolhardy.
While this is perhaps good advice about forming communal bonds, family bonds are often different. Expectations are stronger, and they generally should be. I personally wouldn't want to "overburden" the next generation if I'm unwanted, but I also think it's reasonable for children to try to support their parents as they age if possible. While I'm willing to go along with the idea that parents shouldn't have unreasonable expectations, I find your supposition that we should no longer consider parental support to be the norm even more depressing.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Francis on Monday August 22 2016, @10:47PM
Perhaps they, collectively, should have thought about that when they were voting to cut education and programs meant to ensure young people had the same opportunities that they did. The Baby Boomers in particular have been selfish bastards that had the world pretty much given to them and were too selfish to pass on the benefits. We had the money necessary to properly compensate teachers and to ensure that no child went hungry, but they decided to spend it on tax breaks for the rich and bombing brown people.
There's plenty of money for all Americans to have a decent standard of living, we just let a group of psychopaths convince the fools into believing that if we just cut the tax rates a bit more then we can all get more of the pie. And the evidence has been the contrary, the lower the tax rates on the rich go, the worse everybody else does.