Family Ties and Aging

Providing an integrated and thorough representation of what we know from current research and contemporary society, Family Ties and Aging is the only book that shows how pressing issues of our time—an aging population, changing family structures, and new patterns of work-family balance—are negotiated in the family lives of middle-aged and older adults.

Focusing on such key questions as “How do current trends and social arrangements affect family relationships?” and “What are the implications of what we know for future research, theory, practice, and policy?” author Ingrid Arnet Connidis explores groups and relationships that typically receive short shrift, including single, divorced, and childless older people and their family relationships, as well as sibling relationships among the elderly, live-in partnerships not formalized by marriage, and the kinds of family ties forged by gay and lesbian individuals over the life course. The Second Edition is thoroughly updated to include the latest research and theoretical developments, recent media coverage of related issues, and new information on intimate relationships in later life, gay and lesbian partnerships, sibling ties, and elder neglect/abuse.

Key Features

• Weaves the vast range of information about the many facets of family relationships and aging into a critical, comprehensive, and integrated whole
• Explores a range of intimate relationships, what happens when they end, and pathways to intimacy in old age
• Emphasizes diversity in terms of gender, age, class, race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation throughout to help readers learn about similarities and differences in family relationships as we age
• Links the discussion of various family relationships in mid- and later life to current and future directions for research, practice, and policy

Family Ties and Aging is appropriate for use in upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses such as Families and Aging, Sociology of Aging, and Introduction to Gerontology in departments of family studies, sociology, social work, and gerontology.