Living Arrangements and Family Networks of Older Women in Italy

As in many other industrialized countries, population aging in Italy is disproportionately a phenomenon associated with unmarried women, mainly widows. This article examines the extent to which older unmarried women live alone, and the extent to which they receive help in everyday tasks from others outside their households, using data from a large Italian household sample survey conducted in 1983. Older women can either live alone or with others, and may or may not receive external help in either case; thus there are four distinct combinations of outcomes analyzed. In both descriptive bivariate analysis. and a multivariate model of the outcomes, we find pronounced differences in behavior according to region of residence, educational level, age, degree of disability, work experience, and pension receipt. The findings indicate the importance of family as a source of help and/or co-residence in situations of need.