FACTORS UNDERLYING THE STRUCTURE OF OLDER ADULT FRIENDSHIP NETWORKS

This paper examines the structure of older adult friendship networks a nd how the immediate social environment in which they are embedded sha pes them Data were a probability sample (N = 65) of the residents of G reensboro, North Carolina, aged 55 years or older, living in noninstit utional settings. Four of six bivariate hypotheses regarding the relat ionships between measures of homogeneity, internal hierarchy, and soli darity derived from the friendship literature were confirmed, but none of the 10 hypotheses based on findings from the organizational litera ture was. We used factor analyses to examine the dimensions underlying these network characteristics and cluster analysis to identify patter ns of relationships among these dimensions. The three factors underlyi ng networks structure-egalitarianism, sociability, and religiosity-sha ped the friendships of the respondents and reflected the culture and s ocial structure of the context in which this study took place. Althoug h all elderly in this study were generally subject to the same cultura l and social structural forces, slightly different components affected the outsiders, low status insiders, and high status insiders and thus they had different patterns of friendship networks factors. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.