Patterns of Network Change: A Longitudinal Study of Friendships of Elderly Women

Abstract

Old age is a period during which people have an opportunity to alter their friendship patterns. The data were in-depth interviews and observations of white, non-married, elderly women who lived in a middle-class suburb in 1981 and mail questionnaires and telephone interviews with 42 of the same women in 1984. Three independent dimensions of network evolution were identified. The patterns of change on these dimensions varied across middle-class status groups, but the members of each group tended to have reversed their middle-aged friendship patterns.