ArticleThe Gerontologist2018
Swimming Against the Stream: Non-normative Family Transitions and Loneliness in Later Life Across 12 Nations.
Article in The Gerontologist, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed.
- Family Size Across the Life Course and Cognitive Decline in Older Mexican Adults.The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences · 2025Article
- The Loneliness of the Odd One Out: How Deviations From Social Norms Can Help Explain Loneliness Across Cultures.Perspectives on psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science · 2025Article
- Cohort and gender differences in the association between childlessness and social exclusion in old age.European journal of ageing · 2024Article
- Perceived Discrimination and Incident Dementia Among Older Adults in the United States: The Buffering Role of Social Relationships.The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences · 2024Article
- Family characteristics and loneliness among older adults: evidence from the Brazilian Longitudinal Study of Aging (ELSI-Brazil).Revista brasileira de epidemiologia = Brazilian journal of epidemiology · 2024Article
- Do mothers or females without children have better health-related quality of life across their reproductive years?Quality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation · 2023Article
- Loneliness across time and space.Nature reviews psychology · 2023Review
- A solution for factorial validity testing of three-item scales: An example of tau-equivalent strict measurement invariance of three-item loneliness scale.Current psychology (New Brunswick, N.J.) · 2023Article
- Loneliness before and during the COVID-19 pandemic-are unpartnered and childless older adults at higher risk?European journal of ageing · 2022Article
- The association between early marriage and mental disorder among young migrant and non-migrant women: a Norwegian register-based study.BMC women's health · 2022Article
- The micro-macro interplay of economic factors in late-life loneliness: Evidence from Europe and China.Frontiers in public health · 2022Article
- Older migrants and loneliness: scanning the field and looking forward.European journal of ageing · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background and Objectives: Relatively little research investigated whether experiences during young adulthood have long-lasting consequences for older age loneliness. This article examines whether deviations from culturally based scripts regarding family transitions represent risk factors for later-life loneliness. Moreover, it analyzes whether and in which conditions long-term associations between family transitions and loneliness differ across nations. Research Design and Methods: The analyses use micro-level data from the Generations and Gender Survey Wave 1 for 12 European countries. The sample comprises 61,082 individuals aged 50-85. The research questions are addressed using a step-wise approach based on linear regression analyses, meta-analyses, and meta-regressions. Results: Results show that never having lived with a partner and childlessness are most strongly related to later-life loneliness. Whereas early transitions are unrelated to later-life loneliness, the postponement of partnership, and parenthood are associated with higher levels of loneliness compared to having experienced these transitions "on-time". Childlessness is more strongly associated with later-life loneliness in more traditionalist countries than in less traditionalist ones. Discussion and Implications: This study reveals that individuals with non-normative family transitions are more exposed to loneliness in old age, and that this exposure is related to societal context. In traditionalist contexts, where people rely on families for support, older adults who have experienced non-normative family behavior, and childlessness in particular, may be particularly at risk of loneliness.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.