The longitudinal survey of a changing process of informal relations and attitudes of the single elderly

1.非正式关系和态度的变化模式通过反映独立生活程度的健康状况，可以发现非正式关系随老龄化进程的变化规律。从互惠规范的角度来看，如果老年人在变得虚弱后得到邻居的帮助，他们有时很可能会感到负担。因为他们没有信心回报别人的帮助。因此，他们更喜欢自己的孩子而不是邻居来照看孩子。取代了邻里关系，家庭网络得到了加强，这意味着孩子们有了依恋，有了照顾年长父母的责任感。矛盾的环境对非正式关系的影响农村地区的人们看起来像是生活在彼此亲密而牢固的联系中，这是很自然的。然而，他们有时会尽量避免接受邻居的帮助，以保持良好的关系。这就是为什么他们的联系人比我们不含…的要小更令人满意。他们对微小的互动感到满意，因为他们可以分享一种安全感，即他们可以在紧急情况下期待任何帮助。相反，在城市地区，人们可以选择他们的邻居，在那里他们可以根据自己的责任控制他们的亲密关系。但我们不能指望他们会带着安全感相互照顾。事实上，城市地区的大多数人可能会选择正式的帮助，而不是非正式的帮助。跨文化研究的必要性和可能性试图在不同的家庭制度下，即核心家庭制度和主干家庭制度之间进行比较研究时，对社会行为的解释存在技术上的困难。但只要我们尝试对独居老人进行比较研究，就很容易控制跨文化研究的条件。此外，随着发达工业国家老年人离婚率的攀升，即使在日本，单身老年人的离婚率也在迅速上升。对独居老年人的比较研究将会得出他们如何选择和接触他们的非正式关系的丰硕成果。较少

1. Changing patterns of informal relations and attitudesThe changing pattern of informal relations with the aging process can be found by means of the health conditions which shows the degree of independent living. From a viewpoint of norm of reprocity, if older people receive the help from their neighborhood after becoming frail, they sometimes may well feel a burden. Because they have no confidence to return the help from others. As a result they prefers their children to neighbors as a carer. Instead of the neighborhood relations, the family network has been strengthened, which means the children have attachments and the feeling of responsibility to take care of their older parent.2. The paradoxical environmental effects on informal relationsIt is natural that people in rural areas looks like to live in intimate and strong ties each other. They, however sometimes try to avoid to receive the help from neighbors to keep good relations. That is why they have smaller contacts than we ex … More pect. They are satisfied with small interactions because they can share a feeling of safety that they can expect any help in emergency. On the contrary in a urban area people can choose their neighbors, where they can control their intimate relations upon their responsibilities. But we cannot expect that they will take care of themselves each other with feeling of safety. In fact most people in the urban areas are likely to choose formal help more than informal help.3. The necessity and possibility of cross-cultural studyThere is a technical difficulty to interpret social behaviors when we try a comparative study under the different family systems, namely between the nuclear family system and the stem family system. But as far as we will try the comparative study of the single elderly, it is easy to control the conditions for the cross-cultural study. Additionally with creeping up the divorce rate of the elderly in the developed industrial countries, the rate of single elderly people is going up even if in Japan the rate shows a rapid increase. The comparative study of the single elderly will get a fruitful findings how they can make a choice and contact with their informal ties. Less