Social networks of children in single-parent families: differences according to sex, age, socioeconomic status and housing-type and their associations with behavioural disturbances

Abstract

This investigation of children's personal networks is based on a population of 78 children living with single parents. The aim of this paper was to determine whether there were differences in the personal networks of boys and girls, teenagers and younger children, children from different socioeconomic backgrounds and children living in different housing areas. A further aim was to see if the correlation of behavioural disturbances with aspects of personal networks differed between groups. Boys and younger children were more satisfied with their networks than girls and older children, respectively. Girls experienced greater feelings of loneliness in spite of having more friends and they were also more dependent on close contacts than boys. Older children had more social contacts than younger ones and children from lower socioeconomic groups were closer to friends, whereas children from high socioeconomic groups were closer to relatives. Children living in one-family houses experienced more conflicts between the people in their networks than children living in apartment houses. There was a stronger correlation of behavioural disturbances with aspects of personal networks for girls than for boys, for older children than for younger and for children living in apartment houses than for children living in one-family houses. There were more significant correlations of aspects of personal networks with behavioural disturbances for children from higher socioeconomic groups than for those from lower.