FRIENDSHIP, AGE, AND GENDER

This article discusses two different concepts of friendship in regard to men and to women. While Simmel and Tenbruck assume that friendship is basically men's business, Fischer/Oliker have more recently hypothe sized that women by their very nature are more apt to engage in friend ship. This paper presents data regarding friendship patterns of men an d women older than 70 years and drawn from the Berlin Aging Study. Res ults do not indicate major gender specific differences in friendship p atterns, neither in their structural, nor in their functional aspects.