Childlessness and social support in old age

Abstract

This structured literature review attempts to provide a comprehensive overview of literature on the topic of childlessness and social support in old age. In total, 33 articles that were published between January 2000 and July 2018 were reviewed. Articles to some extent covered topics of nonparents and their social support, social contacts, their social networks, and what are other socio-demographic factors that are possibly influencing these. There was no overall consensus on reviewed topics, but some findings emerged more frequently than others. Nonparents have smaller, but more diverse social networks, they seem to have less frequent social contacts with family, but they see friends and neighbours more often. Most articles depict childless as a vulnerable group with higher rates of loneliness. Childless elderly generally do not lack social support in forms of household help, yet their social networks appear to be less capable of providing intense care tasks. Among factors that also affect all above belong the cultural context, marital status, gender of the given individual, their age, and health status. Interestingly, within group of parents the family size, gender of children, and their proximity also play an important role in social support provision. This review also advices on a further study and development of the topic in the future.

Occupational burnout in Iranian health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…In the present study, having no children was significantly correlated with a higher prevalence rate of OB, in agreement with the survey by Jalili et al [ 30 ], but contrasting the reports by Huang et al and Lai et al [ 54 , 55 ] Childless people might also live through more depression and mental health problems [ 56 ]. Moreover, they may not receive appropriate social support [ 57 ] and be more vulnerable to burnout.…”

Perspektiv på utsatthet och problem under åldrandet

“…I linje med Antonuccis konvojmodell har forskningen visat att barnlösa personer under livsloppet ofta kompenserar för avsaknaden av egna barn genom att etablera alternativa relationer och stödnätverk. Äldre barnlösa personers nätverk tenderar därför att vara mer heterogena än äldre föräldrars (Krenkova 2018;Schnettler & Wöhler 2016) och innehålla fler jämnåriga vänner och släktingar, till exempel syskon och kusiner. Kontakterna med yngre generationer är dock ofta mindre utvecklade (Wenger et al 2000).…”

“…Avsaknaden av barn har visats ha mer negativa konsekvenser för ensamstående äldre män, som ofta har mindre och mer yrkeslivsorienterade nätverk, än för ensamstående kvinnor (Krenkova 2018). Upplevd ensamhet och depression är vanligare bland ensamstående barnlösa äldre män än bland kvinnor (Zhang & Hayward 2001).…”

Childlessness, personal social networks and wellbeing at advanced ages: a cross-sectional study in a Southern European familistic welfare state

“…The rising numbers of childless older adults have impacts on social protection systems and may cause imbalances in service access and use (Krenkova, 2019), especially in those countries with a more robust cultural emphasis on family ties, where there is a(n) (un)spoken expectation that informal family support must fill the gaps and shortages of formal support services (Saraceno, 2010;Albertini and Mencarini, 2014). As Albertini and Mencarini (2014) point out, increasing rates of childlessness will lead to an increased demand for public/formal long-term care services, and this might put a significant strain on a 'weak welfare-state' (Santos, 1993), such as Portugal, where social services for older people remained largely underdeveloped during the past century, and social protection was essentially centred on income support through the pension system, and health care through the national health system (World Health Organization (WHO), 2020).…”