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.
Highlights
Since the second half of the 20th century, when the proportion of European women remaining childless reached its lowest level in the 1935–1949 birth cohort, the proportion of women remaining childless has increased significantly
Many of the studies investigated the potential lack of social contact among the childless elderly from the view that social contacts may have a protective effect on elderly nonparents
The quality of elderly people’s social networks was investigated by looking at the regularity with which they kept in touch with others, and lifelong childlessness resulted in smaller social networks among those living in Berlin and Amsterdam (Dykstra & Wagner, 2007)
Summary
Since the second half of the 20th century, when the proportion of European women remaining childless reached its lowest level in the 1935–1949 birth cohort, the proportion of women remaining childless has increased significantly. Between 10% to 20% of the women born in the 1950s will never have children (Rowland, 2007; Tanturri et al, 2015) This trend has given rise to three main areas of investigation in the research and scholarly literature (Albertini & Mencarini, 2014). As children are often the main source of social contact and social support in old age, scholars wonder whether childless people will end up on the margins of society, potentially lacking social contact or needing assistance when faced with deteriorating health (Albertini and Kohli 2009; Albertini and Mencarini 2014; Deindl and Brandt 2017; Drageset, Kirkevold, and Espehaug 2011; Dykstra 2006; Grundy and Read 2012; Heylen 2010; Klaus and Schnettler 2016; Penning and Wu 2014; Wenger et al 2007; Zoutewelle-Terovan and Liefbroer 2017)
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