Social Supports of the Rural Widowed Elderly*

Abstract

ABSTRACT:A brief demographic profile of rural aging in Canada is provided along with an overview of Canadian research findings on the rural aged in general. The findings from a study of 152 widowed residents of two urban and two rural communities in southern Ontario, Canada, are reported. Three measures of social support were used: i.e., perceived support, patterns of support, and preferred sources of support. The data indicate many more similarities than differences in the social support patterns of this sample of rural and urban widowed elders. Where differences did emerge, the rural widowed reported higher levels of frequency of contact with support members. The rural elderly, however, also had lower socio‐economic status and had been widowed for a shorter period of time. Thus, some of the differences between the support patterns of the rural and urban widowed were accounted for by background differences, rather than by residential location per se. Despite these findings, the respondents perceived that living in a rural area was an advantage in widowhood.