KEEPING IN TOUCH - HOW WOMEN IN MIDLIFE ALLOCATE SOCIAL CONTACTS AMONG KITH AND KIN

Social contacts between middle-aged women and those in the younger and older generations help define the social networks that hold the gener ations together. Through the interpersonal ties constituting these net works, friends, as well as families, exchange various kinds of support that affect an individual's social, psychic, physical, emotional, and economic status. This article sets up a theoretical framework for stu dying women's social contacts with family and friends and tests it usi ng data from the 1981 wave of the National Longitudinal Survey of Matu re Women. Our results indicate that the contacts that middle-aged wome n have with kith and kin depend on the nature of the relationship, hou sehold structure, distance, resources, and a predisposition to contact with family. But the effects of the most important of these depend on other characteristics in key ways.