Recent societal changes have increased the salience of non-kin relationships. It can be questioned whether network types that are more strongly non-kin-based give more informal care nowadays. We study how informal care use differs according to network type for three birth cohorts. Data from the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam (LASA) on older adults aged 75–84 years, interviewed in 1992, 2002 and 2012, respectively (total sample size N = 2,151, analytical sample having functional limitations N = 926). We found four network types: restricted, family-focused with a partner, family-focused without a partner and wider community-focused diverse networks. Wider community-focused diverse networks are more common in the late birth cohort, whereas restricted networks and family-focused networks without a partner are less common. Logistic regression analyses reveal that those in a family-focused network with a partner use informal care more often than those in the other three network types, and insignificant interaction terms show that this does not differ by birth cohort. Irrespective of their network type, those in the late birth cohort use informal care less often. However, after controlling for need, predisposing and context factors, this cohort-difference is no longer significant. We conclude that despite large-scale societal changes, wider community-focused diverse networks do not provide more informal care than before and that among the functionally impaired, the odds of receiving informal care does not decline across birth cohorts.

In ageing societies, policy makers aim for more contact between informal and formal care-givers as it may enhance the quality of care. So far, the linkage between formal and informal care-givers is generally studied from a one-sided or a single dyadic perspective, without taking into account that care networks of community-dwelling older adults often exist of multiple informal and formal care-givers. The current study examines discussion of care between all potential informal–formal care-giver dyads in a care network, and relates this to characteristics of the older care recipient, the care network and the care-givers. Seventy-four Dutch older care recipients provided information on all care-givers who helped with five different types of tasks; 410 care-givers reported on the contact between all care-givers identified. Multi-level logistic regression was conducted in 2,150 informal–formal care-giver dyads and revealed that in 26 per cent of all these dyads discussion on care occurred. This was more likely when both care-givers performed multiple types of tasks, the informal care-giver was residing with the care recipient, and contact within the formal and the informal sub-network was higher. To enhance discussion of care between informal and formal care-givers in care networks where no discussion occurs at all, home-care organisations may need to allocate formal care-givers who form a bridge with an extra-residential care-giver of care recipients living alone.

This study considers changes in child care by grandparents between 1992 and 2006 in relation to changes in mothers' need for and grandparents' opportunity to provide child care. Data from the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam are used to compare two cohorts of Dutch grandparents aged 58–68 (N1992=181; N2006=350). Multi-level regression analysis shows that the probability that grandparents care for their adult daughters' children (N1992=261; N2006=484) increased from 0.23 to 0.41. The increase can be ascribed to higher maternal employment rates, growth in single motherhood, reduced travel time and a decline in the number of adult children. The increase would have been higher if the employment rate of grandparents had not risen.

Awareness of risk factors for loneliness is a prerequisite for preventive action. Many risk factors for loneliness have been identified. This paper focuses on two: poor health and widowhood. Preventive action by developing a satisfying social network requires time and effort and thus seems appropriate for people unexposed to risk factors, i.e. third agers and non-lonely persons. The third age is the period in old age after retirement, before people's social relationships deteriorate. This paper addresses three questions: Are older adults aware of poor health and widowhood as risk factors for loneliness? Are there differences in awareness between third and fourth agers? Are there differences in awareness between lonely and non-lonely older adults? After being introduced to four vignette persons, 920 respondents from the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam were asked whether they expected these persons to be lonely. Older adults, especially third agers, expected peers exposed to the risk factors to be lonely more often than peers who were unexposed. The results indicate that awareness of loneliness-provoking factors is high among third agers, which is a first step towards taking actions to avoid loneliness. Compared to lonely older adults, non-lonely ones expected peers to be lonely less often, suggesting the latter's lower awareness of the risk factors. The results provide evidence for policy makers and practitioners that combating loneliness might require early action.

This paper investigates the trend in sport participation among retirees between 1983 and 2007. Sport participation is important for retirees because of its health benefits and the opportunities it offers for social interaction. Factors that influence sport participation such as educational level, physical limitations, and occupational background have changed during the last decades, possibly accounting for changes in sport participation. Data are from the Amenities and Services Utilization Survey (AVO), a nationally representative Dutch survey with seven observations between 1983 and 2007. The trend in sport involvement, sports club membership, and competition was investigated in a sample of 2,497 male and 1,559 female retirees aged 58–67 years. Increases in participation were observed in sport involvement and sports club membership. This trend can partially be explained by increases in educational level, decreases in the number of retirees with physical limitations, and in those retiring from sedentary jobs. Yet, sport participation seems to have increased for all retirees, regardless of their socio-economic background and health status. Alternative explanations for the observed trend are discussed.

Cross-national comparisons employed welfare state classifications to explain differences in care use in the European older population. Yet these classifications do not cover all care-related societal characteristics and limit our understanding of which specific societal characteristics are most important. Using the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement (second wave, 2006–07), the effect of societal determinants relating to culture, welfare state context and socio-economic and demographic composition on informal and formal care use of older adults in 11 European countries was studied. Multinomial multi-level regression analyses showed that, in addition to individual determinants, societal determinants are salient for understanding care use. In countries with fewer home-based services, less residential care, more informal care support and women working full time, older adults are more likely to receive informal care only. Older adults are more likely to receive only formal home care or a combination of formal and informal care in countries with more extensive welfare state arrangements (i.e. more home-based services, higher pension generosity), whereas the odds of receiving a combination of informal and formal care are also larger in countries that specify a legal obligation to care for parents. We tentatively conclude that the incorporation of societal determinants rather than commonly used welfare state classifications results in more understanding of the societal conditions that determine older adults’ care use.

Previous research on the care-giver burden experienced by adult children has typically focused on the adult child and parent dyad. This study uses information on multiple informal care-givers and examines how characteristics of the informal care-giving network affect the adult child's care-giver burden. In 2007, 602 Dutch care-givers who were assisting their older parents reported on parental and personal characteristics, care activities, experienced burden and characteristics of other informal care-givers. A path model was applied to assess the relative impact of the informal care-giving network characteristics on the care-giver burden. An adult child experienced lower care-giver burden when the informal care-giving network size was larger, when more types of tasks were shared across the network, when care was shared for a longer period, and when the adult child had no disagreements with the other members of the network. Considering that the need for care of older parents is growing, being in an informal care-giving network will be of increasing benefit for adult children involved in long-term care. More care-givers will turn into managers of care, as they increasingly have to organise the sharing of care among informal helpers and cope with disagreements among the members of the network.

Many current discussions of welfare state reforms focus on the ‘young old’, a group now generally perceived as healthy people past retirement age without a legal responsibility for dependent persons in need of care. For the welfare state, they constitute a resource whose activities are hard to steer. This article focuses on the influence of the welfare state on the number of ‘young old’ people. It describes different ways in which the welfare state influences the number of young old persons, and investigates whether variations in the regulations for the ages of normal, early and late retirement are the prime cause. The paper also estimates the share of the young old among those aged 50–90 years in 10 European countries in 2004 using comparable survey data. These shares ranged between 36 and 49 per cent for men and between 35 and 52 per cent for women. High shares were found in continental European countries, and low shares in Scandinavian countries and the United Kingdom. The shares in southern European countries varied among the countries and by gender. To explain the variations in the share, country differences in retirement regulations proved helpful but insufficient. When the overall influence of the welfare state on the share of young old persons in the population was analysed, a country-characteristic pattern emerged.

Background. The loss of a spouse has been found to have a negative effect on physical and mental health and leads to increased mortality. Whether conjugal bereavement also affects memory functioning has largely been unexamined. The present study investigates the effect of widowhood on memory functioning in older persons.

Method. The sample consisted of 474 married women and 690 married men aged 60–85 years in 1992, followed up in 1995 and 1998. During the study 135 (28%) of the women and 69 (10%) of the men lost their spouse. Linear regression analysis was used to examine whether widowed men and women differed from those who had not been widowed in rate of memory change over 6 years. Cross-domain latent-change models were subsequently used to evaluate the extent to which changes in memory are related to changes in other domains of functioning that may be affected by widowhood.

Results. Older adults who lost a spouse during follow-up showed a greater decline in memory over 6 years than those who remained married. A higher level of depressive symptoms at baseline was related to lower levels of memory functioning and a greater decline. Memory decline was unrelated to changes in depressive symptoms and physical health.

Conclusions. Loss of the spouse is related to a greater decline in memory in older adults. The absence of an association with physical functioning and the weak association with mental functioning suggest that losing a spouse has an independent effect on memory functioning.

In this study we apply a lifecourse perspective to an examination of older adults' attitudes about gender roles and moral issues. The study goes beyond previous research in that it examines the relationships between older adults' attitudes and: (a) experiences in the parental home, (b) people's own marital and work experiences through the entire lifecourse, and (c) the marital and work experiences of their children. The sample consists of respondents aged 55 or more years from the ‘Living Arrangements and Social Networks of Older Adults in The Netherlands’ survey of 1992 and the ‘Longitudinal Ageing Study Amsterdam’. It is shown that a large majority of older adults subscribe to the view that people have the freedom to make their own choices about the issues of voluntary childlessness, abortion and euthanasia. Similarly, most older adults favour equality between men and women. Multivariate analyses show that people's attitudes are generally consistent with their lifecourse experiences. It is found that unconventional lifecourse experiences, particularly with respect to childbearing, associate with more progressive attitudes in late life. The behaviour and lifecourse experiences of their children are also related to older adults' attitudes. Particularly, if their children co-habited, older adults tend to be more progressive. These findings suggest that an important mechanism by which societal change may have affected older adults is through their children's experiences.

Loneliness is experienced in many cultures. To properly assess cross-cultural differences, attention should be paid to the level, determinants, and measurement of loneliness. However, cross-cultural studies have rarely taken into account more than one of these. Differences in the level of loneliness were hypothesized on the basis of national differences in partnership, kinship, and friendship, which were assumed to be related to cultural standards within a society. Differences were examined among married and widowed older adults aged 70 to 89 years living independently in the Netherlands (N = 1,847), Tuscany, Italy (N = 562), and Manitoba, Canada (N = 1,134). Loneliness was measured with an 11-item scale. The Manitobans were high on emotional loneliness and the Tuscans were high on social loneliness. Partner status excepted, the determinants were nearly the same across the three locations. Differential item functioning (DIF) related to the three locations was observed for most items. Interactions with gender and the availability of a partner relationship were observed.

This paper examines the impact of childhood and adulthood socio-economic status (SES) on personal network characteristics in later life. Data are derived from 2,285 married older adults (born between 1903 and 1937) who participated in face-to-face interviews for the Dutch survey on ‘Living arrangements and social networks of older adults’ conducted in 1992. Childhood and adulthood SES were indicated by the father's and own level of education and occupation. Multivariate analyses showed that SES in adulthood has more impact on network features in old age than father's SES. People with low lifetime SES or with downward SES mobility had small networks, low instrumental and emotional support from non-kin, but high instrumental support from kin, when compared with the upwardly mobile or those with high lifetime SES. The level of education was a better indicator of network differences than occupational prestige. It is concluded that obtaining a high SES during life pays off in terms of having more supportive non-kin relationships in old age. The small networks and less supportive non-kin relationships of low-status older adults make them more vulnerable to situations in which kin are unavailable or less willing to provide support. This study underscores the distinction between types of support and types of relationships in the SES–network association. Further research on the social pathways of socio-economic inequality in health and wellbeing should take these distinctions into account.

The effects of four social-structural neighbourhood characteristics on the relative size and the composition of neighbouring networks are tested in a sample of 3,504 older adults born between 1908 and 1937 and living in three different regions in the Netherlands. Interactions with individual income and ADL capacity are included in multilevel regression analyses, to test effects of older adults' environmental dependency. Population density and residential mobility both have a negative effect on the relative size of the neighbouring network, and the effect of urbanisation is strongest among poorer respondents. These findings suggest first that the structural effects of urbanisation work at the level of concentration vs. dispersion of personal networks, and second that there is no general mechanism of environmental dependency.