Annotated Bibliography

Voorpostel M. (2013) Just like family: fictive kin relationships in the Netherlands. The Journals
of Gerontology, Vol. 68 Issue 5. Retrieved From psychsocgerontology .oxfordjournals.org
.mantis.csuchico.edu/content/68/5/816.
This studies objective was to older adults in the Netherlands include a nonrelative as
part of their family (create fictive kin)(Voopostel). They also study if there was a
differences in this process when it came to different age groups. They wanted to
understand the importance of absence of close family ties and the experience of
divorce in the family network for the creation of fictive kin(Voorpostel). To study this
they used data from the Netherlands Kinship Panel Study and apply it to different age
age groups and also tracked whether the person in question experience divorce in the
family. They found that Prevalence of fictive kin relationships was higher in older age
groups. Both the absence of close family relationships and the experience of divorce
within the family were related to having fictive kin(Voorpostel). They go on to say that
the divorce statistic is only found in the youngest age group (Voorpostel). With this
data they claim that the the creation of fictive kin is a form of substitution for absent
family members(Voorpostel).
This study has help me answer some of the question I had on the formation of these
relationships but I wish to know if this trend they presented is present in other parts of the
world. Also I wish to know how close to a family bond do these people feel with this people
who are not family and these people only filling a void in their life or are they adding something
to it.