Bridging Disciplinary Boundaries (January 11 - 14, 2007)

Purpose. Previous literature has suggested that widowers experience greater social isolation than widows due to the life-long gendered patterns of social interactions. Women often assume the responsibility of kin-keeping throughout their marriage, and thus, tend to have easier access to social support than men following spousal loss. However, little empirical research has examined the ways that men and women experience changes in qualitative aspects of social support following late-life widowhood. This paper examines the extent to which the effect of widowhood on social support from adult children and from friends/other relatives differs by gender 6 and 18 months after spousal loss.

Methods. Analyses are based on data from the Changing Lives of Older Couples (CLOC), a prospective study of 1,532 married individuals aged 65 and older. Those who lost their spouse during the course of the study were followed up at 6, 18, and 48 months after spousal loss. Married controls from the original sample were also interviewed at the follow-up waves. The analytic sample for this paper comes from baseline (pre-widowhood) and 6- and 18-month follow-up data. Ordinary least squares regression models are used to examine gender differences in the effect of widowhood on (1) support from adult children and (2) support from friends and relatives at 6- and 18-month follow-up, controlling for support at baseline.

Results. At the 6-month follow-up, gender did not have a significant moderating effect on the relationship between widowhood and support from adult children. At the 18-month follow-up, gender exerted a significant influence. For women, widowhood was associated with increased support from children; for men, however, widowhood was associated with decreased support. Both widows and widowers received greater support from friends and relatives compared to their married counterparts. The positive influence of widowhood on social support from friends and relatives, however, was greater for men than for women at both the 6- and 18-month follow-up.

Implications. Findings suggest that gender differences in the social consequences of widowhood significantly vary across different sources of support. Women receive greater support from adult children than men following spousal loss, yet older men benefit from other sources of support, such as from friends and relatives. Furthermore, the effect of gender changes over time. The disadvantage of men in terms of support from children becomes more pronounced at a later stage of bereavement. The findings highlight the importance of considering multiple sources of support and changes in support over time when working with older widows and widowers. By encouraging widowed individuals to evaluate the availability and limitation of each different source of social support and to reassess them as they go through different stages of bereavement, social workers may facilitate the benefit of social support, and alleviate the feelings of social isolation among widowed older adults.