Widowhood, a closely studied transition

Widowhood most often occurs at an advanced age and affects women more, because of the gap in life expectancy and the usual age gap between spouses. The populations studied are therefore predominantly female, which limits the scope of the results for men.

Timing matters too. Early widowhood happens among people who are not facing it themselves, whereas late widowhood falls within a generation where others share the situation. The two relational experiences differ markedly, and surveys, focused on older ages, mainly shed light on the second.

Helena Znaniecka Lopata devoted to widowhood surveys conducted in Chicago and published from the 1970s onwards. They already described the diversity of reorganisations: some women turned to their children, others to friends, others to associations or to employment.

This work stressed a point taken up later: part of a couple's social life is organised as a pair, with other couples, and this part is transformed when one of the two dies, without each partner's own relationships meeting the same fate.

Surveys that follow the same people before and after the death of their spouse often find an increase in contact with family and friends in the period that follows, then a gradual return towards earlier levels. The pattern described is one of a temporary mobilisation of the people around them.

Several studies also find social participation, visits, associational activities, that does not decline and sometimes increases in the following years, particularly among women. This result contradicts the image of a general withdrawal, without saying what it covers for each person.

Surveys frequently describe a gendered organisation of a couple's social life, with family ties and friendships more often maintained by women. After the death of a wife, some of the ties she maintained loosen more easily.

This asymmetry stems from a division of roles observed in specific generations. Whether it persists in more recent generations, where this division has changed, is not established, and comparisons between cohorts remain rare.

Situations of widowhood are highly heterogeneous: the length of the illness that preceded the death, the health of the surviving spouse and their resources vary greatly. A widowhood that follows a long period of caring for a sick spouse occurs within relationships that have already been reorganised.

Finally, surveys capture poorly new partnerships and new relationships that do not take that form. Widowhood thus remains better described in its first years than over the long run, even though the period that follows can cover a long part of a life.