Social Networks and Integration in Aging Societies
What enables or hinders older adults’ social participation and connectedness? How do gender, care responsibilities, and welfare systems influence patterns of integration, volunteering, and loneliness in later life? My work explores these questions through both national and cross-national lenses.
Selected Publications:
Levinsky, M.; Wagner, M.; Schmitz, A.; Cohn-Schwartz, E. & Brandt, M. (2025): Social integration of older men and women across European welfare states: Introducing the Social Integration Index in comparative aging research. Social Indicators Research, 179, 759–779.
Micheel, F.; Schmitz, A. & Brandt, M. (2025): Facilitators and barriers to volunteering in the second half of life: The role of gender and informal caregiving in Germany. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly.
Cohn-Schwartz, E. & Schmitz, A. (2024): From attitudes to social networks: The link between national gender-role attitudes and gender differences in social relationships. Social Networks, 76, 79–87.
Schmitz, A. (2021): Gendered experiences of widowhood and depression across Europe. Journal of Affective Disorders, 380, 114–120.
Brandt, Martina; Garten, Claudius; Grates, Miriam; Kaschowitz, Judith; Quashie, Nek-ehia & Schmitz, Alina (2021): Veränderungen von Wohlbefinden und privater Unter-stützung für Ältere: Ein Blick auf die Auswirkungen der COVID-19-Pandemie im Früh-sommer 2020. Zeitschrift für Gerontologie und Geriatrie, 54 (3), 240-246. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00391-021-01870-2