Abstract
We investigated how network's size and structure influence the attention given by its members to the elderly. We also investigate the amount of time of care and communication devoted to the elderly. We use SABE, São Paulo city, Brazil, in 2000, to investigate this issue. We developed a attention index to estimate the impact of the network on care and attention. One of the main advantages of SABE is that it allows us to define the support network not only by the members of the household, but also as the social support network of the elderly. We used ordered logistic regression models to study the associations between the structure and size of the network, the number of members, the percentage of daughters and the family type, controlling for the characteristics of the elderly themselves and their network members. We find that the attention devoted to the elderly is not only related to the characteristics of the network members, but also related to the features of the families of these individuals. We observed that, in larger networks, each individual devotes less attention to the elderly and that the elderly with more daughters receives less attention from other family members and most of the care is provided by the daughters. Lastly, individuals tend to reflect the behavior of their family; individuals from families who devote more attention to their elderly tend to give more care.
Keywords:
Care for the elderly; Family; Ordered logistic models