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The Effect of Widowhood On Older Adults' Social Participation: An Evaluation of Activity, Disengagement, and Continuity Theories
The Effect of Widowhood On Older Adults' Social Participation: An Evaluation of Activity, Disengagement, and Continuity Theories
Purpose: This study evaluated how levels of social partic- more psychological and behavioral adjustment than
ipation change as a result of late-life widowhood. Social any other life transition (Barrett & Schneweis, 1980–
participation is a multidimensional construct incorporat- 1981; D. Gallagher, Thompson, & Peterson, 1982–
ing both formal (e.g., meeting attendance, religious par- 1983; Holmes & Rahe, 1967; Thompson, Breckenridge,
ticipation, and volunteer obligations) and informal (e.g., Gallagher, & Peterson, 1984). To date, bereavement
telephone contact and social interactions with friends) social studies have focused primarily on the emotional and
roles. Design and Methods: Using data from the Chang- psychological responses to widowhood (see Stroebe,
ing Lives of Older Couples study, analyses compared wid- Hansson, Stroebe, & Schut, 2001, for review). In con-
trast, this article explores the social and behavioral
owed persons to continuously married control participants
implications of spousal loss. Because older adults
to evaluate whether widowhood affects older adults’ levels
have solidified and internalized a lifetime of habits,
of social participation. Results: Widowed persons had behaviors, and attitudes (Atchley, 1989), the behav-
higher levels of informal social participation than nonwid- ioral adjustments associated with late-life bereave-
owed persons, whereas formal social participation levels ment may be one of the most difficult challenges an el-
were comparable between the two groups. Social partici- derly person faces. Upon widowhood, the survivor
pation levels decrease before the death of a spouse, prima- must relinquish the status of married person and as-
rily because of poor spousal health, and increase following sume the identity of widow(er). In response to this
the loss, because of increased support from friends and identity transition, bereaved persons may realign
relatives. Implications: Maintaining continuity in the realm their social networks or alter their social activities.
of social participation is a strategy older adults use to Social interactions outside of the marital relationship
cope with spousal loss; however, not all widowed per- may become increasingly salient, thereby increasing
sons have the same resources to alter their levels of social bereaved persons’ level of social involvement. Alter-
participation. natively, social relationships may become strained if
widow(er)s feel like a “fifth wheel” among married
Key Words: Social integration, Social support, Formal friends, thereby decreasing the bereaved persons’
and informal social roles, Spousal bereavement level of social engagement. Using the Changing Lives
of Older Couples study (CLOC), we explored how
the formal and informal social participation of older
Past research has claimed that widowhood is married and widowed persons changes over time and
among the most stressful of all life events and requires whether theoretical explanations from social geron-
tology are useful in explaining the patterns of change.
The Changing Lives of Older Couples study was supported by National Defining Social Participation
Institute on Aging (NIA) Grants P01-AG05561-01 and R01-AG15948-01.
Rebecca Utz’s participation was supported by an NIA predoctoral trainee- According to Rowe and Kahn (1997), active and
ship. We thank the anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful and detailed
comments on earlier versions of this article. This paper was presented at the productive engagement in society is a central compo-
53rd Annual Scientific Meeting of The Gerontological Society of America, nent of successful aging. Applied to bereavement, sus-
November 2000, Washington, DC. tained social engagement could also be a critical com-
Address correspondence to Rebecca Utz, Population Studies Center of
the Institute for Social Research, 426 Thompson St., P.O. Box 1248, Ann ponent of successful adaptation or coping. A positive
Arbor, MI 48106-1248. E-mail: utzrl@umich.edu
1Department of Sociology and 2Institute for Social Research, University
relationship between social activity and well-being
of Michigan, Ann Arbor. is well documented (Lowenthal & Haven, 1968).
3Department of Psychology, State University of New York at Stony Brook. Higher levels of social participation are associated
Table 1. Means and Standard Deviations for Widowed and Nonwidowed Respondents, Changing
Lives of Older Couples Study, 1987–1993
Variable M SD M SD
Social Participation
Formal—Baseline/Preloss Informal—Baseline/Preloss
Independent Variable 1a 2a 1b 2b
Table 3. Ordinary Least Squares Regression Coefficients Predicting the Effect of Widowhood on Formal and Informal Social
Participation, Changing Lives of Older Couples Study, 1987–1993
Social Participation
Independent Variable 1a 2a 3a 1b 2b 3b
Figure 2. Do widowed persons seek out more social participation or do others seek out widowed persons ( n 210 widowed
persons)?
respond differently to widowhood. Widowed persons, retrospective data, whereas the current analyses used
both men and women, exhibited a sustained increase in prospective, longitudinal data from a widow–control
informal social participation following spousal loss, sample. Our findings, using the methodologically
whereas formal social participation levels did not fluc- unique CLOC study, insinuate that widowhood is a
tuate over time or in response to widowhood. A ma- process of adjustment that begins before the actual
jority of widowed persons admitted to using in- date of death and extends well beyond the initial
creased social participation as an active coping mourning period associated with spousal bereave-
strategy to deal with the negative effects of widow- ment. Future widow(er)s and those with ill spouses
hood. These behavioral patterns suggest that social may have a sense-of-death forewarning and devote
participation, particularly informal activities such as their time and energy to their spouses in their final
telephone contact and getting together with friends, is days or months, thus reducing their preloss levels of
an aspect of daily life that is deeply affected by late- social engagement. Following the actual death, wid-
life bereavement. Formal social participation may not owed persons continue their process of adjustment,
provide the emotional and instrumental support that generally exhibiting a sustained increase in extrafa-
informal social participation does, thus explaining milial social activities. The use of prospective, longi-
why formal social participation levels remain con- tudinal data is imperative to evaluate the processual
stant after widowhood. nature of widowhood.
Four broad themes, which encompass broader is- A third theme concerns the interrelatedness of so-
sues related to late-life bereavement, characterize the cial actors. Although only the survivor assumes the
major findings of these analyses. The first theme holds widowed label, the effects of widowhood are not ex-
that a desire for continuity dominates the adjustment perienced in isolation. We found that the increased
process following widowhood. Widowed persons over- social participation among the widowed sample was
whelmingly expressed a desire for continuity when perhaps a function of others rallying around the be-
asked about how much contact they preferred to have reaved, rather than of the survivor’s seeking out addi-
with others compared with how much contact they tional social activity. Consistent with past research,
had before the loss. Analyses demonstrated that prior older adults receive an outpouring of support from
social participation is, by far, the best predictor of friends and relatives during times of perceived need
subsequent social participation. Despite the disrup- (Hogan & Eggebeen, 1995). Lopata (1996) argued
tion caused by widowhood, survivors displayed tre- that social involvement increases after widowhood
mendous resiliency when adjusting their levels of because friends, relatives, and neighbors uncondition-
social activity and community involvement. In both ally offer emotional and instrumental support to the
preferences and actual behaviors, older adults dem- recently bereaved. As childless widow(er)s exhibit
onstrated a sense of continuity when faced with the particularly low levels of social integration, kin may
unfortunate experience of becoming widowed. be particularly crucial to the adjustment process by
The second theme contends that widowhood is a encouraging elderly parents to remain socially en-
process rather than a discrete event or static state. gaged. Increased social participation, whether pas-
Much of the past research has characterized widow- sively or actively acquired, is a reflection of how mul-
hood as a discrete event defined by the spouse’s date tiple actors experience and influence the transition to
of death or as a marital status defined as being wid- widowhood.
owed rather than married, single, or divorced. Past re- A fourth and final theme assumes that there are
search has largely been based on cross-sectional or multiple pathways to individual bereavement out-