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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: 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. ;-)