Setting the Research Agenda for Friendships in Later Life

Abstract

Friendship plays a fundamental role in individuals’ social lives across the lifespan, yet friendship in later life has received less scholarly attention than other key ties (e.g., family, romantic partners). Scholars have documented that friendship is increasing in importance in older adulthood (Fiori et al., 2020), due in part to shifting demographic patterns and sociohistorical norms (e.g., increased life expectancy, decreasing fertility rates, evolving age and gender norms, “gray divorce,” and increasing singlehood later in life; Brown & Lin, 2012; Cherlin, 2010; Fiori et al., 2020; Rauer et al., 2024; Xu et al., 2018). The research collected in this Special Issue of Research on Aging is therefore timely as it brings into sharper focus the contexts, characteristics, and consequences of friendship in later life.

Drawing from a range of methodological approaches - including large-scale longitudinal surveys, ecological momentary assessments (EMA), and in-depth qualitative interviews - this issue advances the field by integrating varied perspectives on friendship and its role in shaping aging trajectories. Across the 12 articles, the authors explore key questions about friendship in late life: For example, are there causal links between friendship and health in late life? How do friendships buffer or exacerbate the association between physical limitations and well-being? How are friendships differently experienced by men and women, and by those with or without romantic partners? How do cultural context and social environments shape the nature and meaning of these ties? And how should we best measure the short- and long-term consequences of friendship for health and aging? In what follows, we summarize and situate each contribution, grouping them according to whether friendship is conceptualized as primarily a predictor or an outcome.

Five of the 12 articles in this special issue focus primarily on how friendship might influence the health, well-being, and behaviors of older adults. For example, in their study using multiple waves of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS; 2006–2020), Latham-Mintus, Goddard, and Manierre found that older adults reporting more contact with their friends had a lower risk of developing high levels of depressive symptoms or of being diagnosed with a psychological condition. Additionally, having only a few close friends was associated with increased odds of developing depressive symptoms. Their findings also, however, point to the potential ‘dark side’ of friendships, since negative support from friends (i.e., friends being critical or making too many demands) increased the risk of developing these conditions.

The potential effects of friendships extend beyond mental health outcomes. In their examination of 8 waves of the HRS (1998–2012), Jang, Zhang, and Han found that getting together for a social visit with friends or neighbors and providing informal help were both associated with better cognitive functioning. Interestingly, however, informal helping was a more robust predictor, being associated with both cognitive function levels and rates of cognitive decline. The authors speculate that this is due to the fact that engagement in informal helping entails more complex goal-directed engagement than does social visiting.

Extending this focus to more specific, goal-directed behaviors, Lian used several waves of the HRS data (2018-2020) to explore the impact of friendships on Advance Care Planning (ACP). Lian found that emotional support from friends, as well as the number of close friends, are both positively associated with ACP. However, the strength of these findings appeared to depend not only on which aspect of ACP was being examined (end of life discussions or advanced directives completion) but also on a complex intersection between gender and relationship history. These findings are particularly important because ACP has been found to reduce overtreatment and ensure that care aligns with patients’ values at the end of life.

In addition to direct effects on older adults’ health and well-being, support from friends may also have stress-buffering effects. Using data from the HRS (2016–2018), Carr and Choi found that support from friends mitigated the association between physical limitations and depressive symptoms, and that the pattern was consistent across gender. However, there was evidence that friend support may bestow greater protection for unpartnered individuals compared to those who are partnered. On the other hand, and consistent with findings from Latham-Mintus et al. regarding the potential psychosocial costs of friendship, friend strain appeared to exacerbate the association between physical limitations and depressive symptoms.

Offering a more micro-level lens on the effects of friendship on emotional well-being, Ng, Chopik, Birditt, and Fingerman used ecological momentary assessments (EMA) in a sample of 180 older adults to explore the association between daily support provision and mood. Older adults experienced greater positive mood on days that they provided practical support. The authors did find evidence of gender moderating these associations, as men experienced lower positive mood when providing emotional support - a pattern not observed in women. Together, this set of papers underscores the pivotal role that friendships play in the short- and long-term well-being of individuals, as well as highlighting some of the key contexts that may shape these links.

Given the importance of friendship for health and well-being in later life, understanding the characteristics and predictors of friendships - both their quality and quantity - represents an important area of inquiry. Addressing this challenge, the final set of seven papers uses a variety of methods and theoretical perspectives to reveal the nature and antecedents of friendships in older adulthood. The first two studies in this set highlight the role that health limitations may play in the maintenance of friendships. Using two waves of the China Longitudinal Aging Social Survey (2016 and 2018), Peng found that the onset of functional limitations over that 2-year period was associated with fewer friends available to meet with or provide emotional support, but not with changes in instrumental support from friends. Interestingly, the effects were moderated by context, such that the association between the onset of functional limitations and contact frequency with friends was stronger among more educated older adults and among adults living in rural areas. These findings imply that expectations regarding friendships may vary based on individuals’ living situations.

Extending this consideration of the links between health and friendship further, Chopik, Yang, and Lucas used sophisticated statistical modeling in the HRS to examine reciprocal associations between friendship characteristics (number, contact frequency, and quality) and health indicators (self-rated health, depression, and cognition) over a 16-year period. Notably, they uncovered more robust evidence for health predicting friendship rather than the reverse. The authors speculate that ‘causal’ links between friendship characteristics and health are likely very small, and instead associations might be driven by more stable between-person differences (e.g., personality).

Further highlighting the role of meaningful between-person differences, the next three articles tackle the complex intersection between friendship and partnership. Using several waves of the HRS data (2016–2022), Choi and Carr found that all unpartnered individuals - whether they were unpartnered before the study began or became unpartnered during the study (e.g., widowed, divorced) - reported higher levels of friend support and strain relative to married or cohabiting individuals. These findings lend support to the “marriage as a greedy institution” framework (Sarkisian & Gerstel, 2016), which refers to the idea that the significant time, energy, and emotional investment demanded by marriages (or partnerships) comes at the expense of other social relationships (like friends). Notably, the magnitude of the gaps between partnered and unpartnered persons were consistently larger for men than women, suggesting that marriage occupies a particularly key role in the emotional lives of older men.

Further highlighting the gender differences inherent at the intersection of partnerships and friendships, Ermer and Keenoy interviewed 19 women to explore shared and individual friendships. Not only did the women report that their husbands had fewer friends than they did, but the women also stated that they tended to be the “driving force” in their relationships with other couples. Interestingly, however, women who repartnered later in life talked about how their friendships were fairly separate or less close - again implying that marriage (even in later in life) may be a resource-intensive institution.

Suggesting that this phenomenon may be more universal, Mair used data from the World Values Survey and United Nations (64,277 adults aged 45+ across 87 countries) to document regional variation in the emphasis on friendship and the role of partnership status in shaping views of friendships. They found regional variation in the emphasis on friendship (e.g., friendship deemed significantly less important to middle-aged and older adults in the Americas and Asia; a connection found between greater economic development and a stronger emphasis on friendship), consistent with Peng’s findings about the importance of place in shaping friendships. Notably, Mair also found that those who placed the highest value on friendship were the never married or childless, regardless of the specific global context. Furthermore, those with disrupted partnerships, particularly those in highly developed countries, placed a greater emphasis on friendship. Taken together, these findings suggest that more proximal contextual variables (i.e., partnership) may play a larger role in shaping friendships than more distal contextual variables (i.e., cultural norms).

The final two articles in this Special Issue address additional contextual variables that may shape friendship trajectories into late life. Lee conducted qualitative interviews with eight older women (aged 75 to 100) from two cultural groups - Korean Americans and White Americans - to explore virtual networks as a key context for friendships. Findings revealed that White Americans took a more cautious and privacy-conscious approach to digital communication tools compared to Korean Americans. The Korean American women in the study reported engaging heavily with digital platforms as a means for maintaining relationships as well as fostering cultural continuity and a sense of community belonging. However, participants emphasized that virtual connections frequently lacked the emotional richness of in-person interactions, suggesting that these networks are better suited to enhance, rather than replace, face-to-face friendships.

Finally, Yang utilized sophistical statistical modeling techniques with the HRS data to demonstrate how the social environments that individuals experience across the life course - and not just their current context - shape friendships in later life. More specifically, early and continued exposure to cohesive neighborhoods was associated with a greater number of close friends and stronger perceived support from friends later in life. Similar to Lee’s findings, this work suggests that more direct and in-person contact with one’s community may yield long-term benefits.

Together, this collection of articles showcases a number of much-needed advances that have taken place in the literature on friendship in later life. From sophisticated longitudinal studies to comprehensive cross-cultural examinations to rich qualitative explorations, these papers highlight that not only does friendship play a powerful role in how older adults age, but in turn how health and lifestyle changes associated with aging shape experiences of friendship. Perhaps more importantly, these papers provide powerful evidence of how contextually determined these pathways are, from more proximal influences (e.g., partnership status, functional limitations) to more distal influences (e.g., childhood neighborhoods, living situations, cultural norms). These findings help set the agenda both for future scholarship and for policy and practice recommendations to support optimal aging and connection.

Next Steps

From methodological advances to uncovering important contextual considerations, the papers in this Special Issue provide scholars with numerous, well-articulated areas for further inquiry. For example, several of the papers make meaningful distinctions not only between different types of support (emotional versus practical), but also between the receipt versus provision of support. Traditionally, instrumental or practical support has been assumed to come primarily from kin, though some of the articles in this Special Issue indicate that friends may be important sources of (and recipients of) this type of support as well. In fact, prior research has indicated that instrumental support received from non-kin is actually more beneficial for well-being among older adults and, in fact, can be detrimental when coming from kin under certain conditions (Merz & Huxhold, 2010). Moreover, the articles in this Special Issue suggest that the provision of practical support to friends may be particularly salubrious for mood (Ng et al.) and cognitive functioning (Jang et al.), though there may be challenges associated with providing emotional support to friends, at least among men (Ng et al.). Taken together, this set of papers not only highlights the critical need to acknowledge the intricacies of relationship dynamics between friends, but also underscores the importance of treating friendships as meaningful avenues through which older adults can be generative.

Despite this work and growing evidence of the importance of friendship in late life (Fiori et al., 2020), some of the papers in this Special Issue highlight the fact that social norms regarding the role of kin (versus non-kin) may still predominate in certain contexts. For example, Peng found no association between the onset of functional limitations and instrumental support from friends in a sample of Chinese older adults, a finding implying that instrumental support was still likely coming primarily from kin. Similarly, Lian found that although emotional support from friends and the number of close friendships were positively associated with the formal completion of advance directives, these variables were not associated with end-of-life discussions. The authors reasoned that strong social norms continue to drive the idea that EOL discussions should occur solely within the familial context. Moving forward, it is imperative to reevaluate the narrative that family members are the sole driving force behind all health decisions and behaviors, as the broader social context can play both a direct and an indirect role in health and well-being (e.g., aforementioned links between partnership status and friendships; Choi & Carr; Ermer & Keenoy; Mair).

At the same time, several articles also distinguish between positive and negative support, recognizing that friendships may not be as uniformly positive as previously assumed. For example, Latham-Mintus and colleagues suggest that negative support from friends is more harmful than positive support is beneficial. Both Latham-Mintus and Carr and Choi mention this ‘dark side’ of friendships, with Choi and Carr finding that all groups of individuals with high levels of friend support (primarily unpartnered individuals) also reported the highest levels of friend strain. This implies that even into late life, despite increasing satisfaction with relationships (Luong et al., 2011) and greater pleasantness associated with daily encounters with friends in particular (Ng et al., 2021), friendships can still be a source of stress. In fact, in their EMA study, Ng et al. (2021) found that paradoxically, encounters with friends were associated with better mood only if the encounters were with friends not considered particularly close. Thus, moving forward, scholars should question certain assumptions about the nature of close friendships in late life that seems to prevail in the literature. For example, do such friendships remain truly egalitarian and voluntary? Or do close friends take on more of a kin role in older adulthood? Supporting these possibilities, Carr and Choi suggest that health challenges may undermine the reciprocal and balanced nature of friendships, and Chopik and colleagues found that poorer health was more likely to predict compromised friendships than vice versa. In terms of future directions, scholars may need to move beyond traditional ideas of friendship to understand the role of other friendship-like ties (e.g., fringeships, Fingerman et al., 2025) and weak ties in older adults’ daily lives.

Such considerations also align with many of the recommendations that the papers in this Special Issue have for policy and practice, as they draw attention to the importance of thinking both more contextually and more precisely. For example, these papers highlight the potential limitations of existing policies in the US that encourage older adults to turn primarily to family for their support needs (Croghan et al., 2014). Overlooking - or even minimizing - the critical role that friends play in providing and receiving support could limit much needed access and resources for a large portion of the population for whom kin relations are either insufficient or problematic. These issues of access were underscored throughout this Special Issue - from recommendations from Lee about increasing digital literacy in order to help older adults bridge the digital divide and build a community, to recommendations from both Peng and Latham-Mintus and colleagues about the need for increasing transportation availability to enable older adults to connect with others in person. These suggestions provide clear targets for how we can feasibly and sustainably support older adults’ social ties. Such efforts should take place not only in older adulthood but throughout the lifespan, given Yang’s work about the importance of fostering a sense of belonging to one’s community early in life for late life social well-being. In conclusion, this collection of papers provides a compelling and timely agenda for the field of social relationships in later life moving forward.

Footnotes

ORCID iDs

Katherine L. Fiori

Amy Rauer

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biographies

Katherine L. Fiori (Ph.D., Developmental Psychology, University of Michigan), is a Professor and Associate Dean for Foundational Psychology and Faculty Involvement in the Gordon F. Derner School of Psychology at Adelphi University in Garden City, NY. She is particularly interested in how social relationships shape our health and well-being across the life course, particularly into late life.

Amy Rauer (Ph.D., Developmental Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor), is a Professor in Couseling, Human Development, and Family Science at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. Her work focuses on how intimate relaitonships develop as the individuals within them grow and change over the lifespan.

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