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Assessing the Coherence of Parents' Short Narratives Regarding their Child Using the Five-Minute Speech Sample Procedure
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Published on: September 19, 2019

Family relationships of older, rural women: stability and change

J P Scott1

  • 1Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Texas Tech University, Lubbock 79409, USA.

Journal of Women & Aging
|January 27, 1999
PubMed

The purpose of the study was to examine stability and change in family interaction patterns (availability, interaction, and assistance) of older, rural women as they moved from young-old to late old age. Women (N = 96) were interviewed at two times, twelve years apart. Although there were family network losses, most notably loss of spouse and siblings, family availability and contact showed more stability than change. By late old age, the women were receiving significantly more help from adult children relative to what they gave. Proximity of the adult child was most salient as a predictor of help received from children at both Times 1 and 2. Quality of the adult child relationship was higher for women who received more types of help from adult children at Time 2. The findings suggest that with loss of family members, proximate kin may take up the slack in providing support to rural women of advanced age.

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