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).
Highlights
People live in neighborhoods, and their interactions with their neighbors are shaped by social contacts and support. Hamm (1973) defined neighbors as social groups whose members interact primarily because of the commonality of the place of residence
Help among neighbors in both directions was almost nonexistent (∼1%) among those in southern Europe, Greece and Spain. These results suggest the existence of an imbalanced gradient of neighborhood help ranging from the north to the south of Europe; this pattern was not applicable to all countries, as deviations were observed in the Czech Republic and Luxembourg
The influence of social context was explored in addition to personal characteristics, and the results showed that older adults who had experienced the loss of a partner were less likely to provide neighborhood help and more likely to receive support
Summary
Their interactions with their neighbors are shaped by social contacts and support. Hamm (1973) defined neighbors as social groups whose members interact primarily because of the commonality of the place of residence. Hamm (1973) defined neighbors as social groups whose members interact primarily because of the commonality of the place of residence. Their interactions with their neighbors are shaped by social contacts and support. In this sense, neighbors are by definition nearby. Mutual support is not necessarily provided; neighborhoods are community-building locations characterized by social, functional, cultural, or circumstantial connections (Chaskin, 1997). The neighborhood has proved to be an arena that is suitable for social exchange due to the factors of proximity, continuity, and place attachment, which promote the development of social contacts (Henning and Lieberg, 1996; Oswald et al, 2005; Burns et al, 2012).
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