The Family in an Aging Society A Matrix of Latent Relationships

Because of unprecedented increases in longevity, the kinship structure has been transformed. Linkages among family members have been prolonged, and the surviving generations in a family have increased in number and complexity. Today's kinship structure (which has no parallel in history) can be...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of family issues Vol. 4; no. 3; pp. 439 - 454
Main Author RILEY, MATILDA WHITE
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Beverly Hills, Calif SAGE Publications 01.09.1983
Sage Publications
Subjects
Family/Families
Kin/Kinship
Relationship/Relationships
Structure/Structures/ Structuring/ Structured
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Summary:Because of unprecedented increases in longevity, the kinship structure has been transformed. Linkages among family members have been prolonged, and the surviving generations in a family have increased in number and complexity. Today's kinship structure (which has no parallel in history) can be viewed in a new way: as a latent web of continually shifting linkages that provide the potential for activating and intensifying close family relationships. These relationships are no longer prescribed as strict obligations, but must be earned—created and recreated by family members over their lives. Such changes in the structure and dynamics of family relationships raise many questions and issues for students of the family including the development of special research approaches needed to understand the complexity of these relationships and the nature of older people's family relationships in the future.
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ISSN:0192-513X
1552-5481
DOI:10.1177/019251383004003002