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posted by janrinok on Monday August 22 2016, @06:17PM   Printer-friendly
from the marriage-is-good-for-you! dept.

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.


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Monday August 22 2016, @09:18PM

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Monday August 22 2016, @09:18PM (#391882)

    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.

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  • (Score: 2) by MostCynical on Monday August 22 2016, @10:03PM

    by MostCynical (2589) on Monday August 22 2016, @10:03PM (#391893) Journal

    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

      by Grishnakh (2831) on Tuesday August 23 2016, @04:38PM (#392203)

      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

    by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Monday August 22 2016, @10:08PM (#391895) Journal

    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

      by Francis (5544) on Monday August 22 2016, @10:47PM (#391911)

      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.