Help From and Help to Neighbors Among Older Adults in Europe

Abstract

Neighborhoods can be a valuable source of social support particularly for older adults. Such support can be mutual; however, the influential factors in giving and receiving are unclear. This study investigated neighborhood help among the older European population using representative data for 17 countries from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). The analyses were based on 104,059 observations of 39,113 respondents aged 50 years and older. In general, ∼6% of all respondents provided recently neighborhood help, and 4% received help. Moreover, the results indicate a high degree of reciprocity in giving and receiving neighborhood help. However, the situation varied widely among age groups and countries. Our multilevel results suggest that the provision and receipt of help are driven by personal characteristics (age, sex, education, income, and retirement), health resources (subjective health, activities of daily living, and instrumental activities of daily living), living situation (homeownership, location, and length of time in a residence), social factors (marital status, partner, parents, and children), and contextual factors (gross domestic product, social expenditures, poverty rate, Gini index, population density, country-centered satisfaction with life, living, and relationships).

Help thy neighbor. Neighborhood relations, subjective well-being, and trust during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…One interpretation of this finding is an increase in social inequality in terms of well-being and the resources that can be mobilized from neighbors [4]. However, it is possible that this pattern emerges because those with more resources were more able to help their neighbors [50], experiencing a feeling of warm glow of giving in return [70], which increased their subjective well-being. Irrespective of the reason, however, a social gradient in the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on people's subjective well-being and trusts exists [71], and partly works through the changes induced in their neighborhood social network.…”

“…Also based on self reports, an additional indicator captures whether respondents or somebody in their household, or somebody they know personally, were tested positive for COVID-19. In the same vein, people's age is included linearly as well as a quadratic term to account for the fact that the elderly were more affected by the pandemic and that they usually also rely more on locally organized support, such as instrumental help from neighbors [45,50].…”

“…In this regard, elderly people were not only especially affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and the measures to contain it [44,45], but they are usually also more attached to their neighborhood, have larger neighborhood networks, and they mobilize more support from neighbors [24,[46][47][48]. On the other hand, although people with less resources are reported to benefit most from neighborhood networks [46], people with more advantageous endowments (e.g., higher educational qualifications) usually have larger networks and mobilize more support through these networks [49,50].…”

“…Consequently, those who improved their relation with neighbors in the course of the pandemic are expected to show a smaller decline in generalized trust and subjective well-being. In other words, a COVID-19-induced increase in neighboring, understood as the exchange of social and instrumental support [10,50], should buffer the negative effects of the pandemic on people's generalized trust and subjective well-being.…”

Older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic – Forgotten and stigmatized?

“…However, we must avoid the misconception that this help is always one-sided, that is, that the older person is always the recipient of help. Indeed, studies repeatedly show that neighborly help is mutual and that it is this give-and-take process that increases neighborhood social cohesion (Cramm et al, 2013; Seifert and König, 2019).…”