Confidants and companions: choices in later life

This study examines and compares the correlates of considering each of the following as a confidant or a companion: spouse, children, siblings, other relatives, friends. Using a Canadian sample of 400 respondents aged 65 and over, we found evidence of substitution among the previously married and childless; more extensive ties to children and more intimate ties to friends among women; the importance of geographic proximity to children for confiding and companionship, and to siblings for confiding; the relevance of family size to confiding in siblings; and the precariousness of friendship as one reaches very old age. Predictors of who serve as confidants and as companions are similar, but important differences emerge. We compared our results to those of studies in Australia and the United States and to an earlier analysis of network composition and concluded that the confiding and companionate relations of older persons are best understood by combining the results of relationship-specific and network composition analyses.