Gender and social relationships among the never-married

Abstract

This research explores the social networks among the growing numbers of men and women who have never married. We use a representative sample of 193 never-married men and 217 never-married women, of whom 73% of the men and 60% women of the were white and 16% of the men and 20% of the women were black. We hypothesize that single women have a more extensive social network than do men. Second, we investigate the impact of gender roles and norms of filial responsibility and selected sociodemographic variables upon social interaction by gender. Our findings indicate that gender differences are not as anticipated: (1) while never-married women interact more frequently with relatives than do never-married men, no differences were noted among friendship or neighborhood networks; (2) time spent in social interaction was more likely to differ by marital status than it was by gender; (3) compared to married persons, the never-married are overrepresented in the extreme categories of interaction, both isolated and very active; (4) gender role ideology and filial responsibility did not significantly predict social interaction for either men or women, with the exception that, among never-married men, those with lower expectations of filial responsibility spent more time with friends.