Residence patterns of aged widows in three Mediterranean communities and the organization of the care

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Abstract
Widowhood and old age increase the need for support. The analysis of the living arrangements of the elderly demonstrates how that assistance was provided. The example of these three Majorcan communities (Sineu, Vilafranca, and Capdepera) between 1880 and 1965 indicates that the solidarity networks of the family members enabled elderly widows and widowers to live in their own households. Proximity permitted a regular and intensive contact by the members of the family and a continuous exchange of services and help that met the needs of the different generations as in other Mediterranean societies. However, residential proximity did not replace coresidence with married children. Both coresidence and residential proximity were strategies that families employed according to their particular needs and situations. The frequency of complex households and whether headship of the household remained with the older generation were determined by the nature of the inheritance system as well as by the ability of older women to assist with domestic tasks, such as the care of grandchildren. The position of women as usufructuaries or nonproprietors after the death of their husbands helps explain the higher proportion that lived in the households of married children. Widowers, as they owned the house in which they lived, were in a stronger position and retained the headship of the household. From the last decades of the 19th century to the 1960s, the number of widowed who lived alone gradually increased, but daily contact with children was maintained.