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:
Alonso-Perez, E., O’Sullivan, J. L., Schnitzer, S., Schmitz, A., Brandt, M., & Gellert, P. (2026). When to care? A MAIHDA analysis of intersectional inequalities in the age of caregiving onset using European longitudinal data. Ageing and Society, 46, e34. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0144686X26100592
Schmitz, A., Brandt, M., Levinsky, M., Wagner, M., & Cohn-Schwartz, E. (2026). Exploring gender disparities in cognitive performance in later life: The role of social participation across European welfare regimes. Social Science & Medicine, 394, 119070. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2026.119070
Jessee, L., Kim-Knauss, Y., Schmitz, A., Nashef-Hamuda, R., Köttl, H., Cohn-Schwartz, E., & De Paula Couto, M. C. P. (2025). When Parents Grieve: Adult Child Support and Depressive Symptoms Among Men and Women After Widowhood. Research on Aging, 01640275251404880. https://doi.org/10.1177/01640275251404880
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. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-025-03635-5
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. https://doi.org/10.1177/089976402513742
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. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socnet.2023.08.001
Schmitz, A. (2021): Gendered experiences of widowhood and depression across Europe. Journal of Affective Disorders, 380, 114–120. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2020.11.091
Brandt, Martina; Garten, Claudius; Grates, Miriam; Kaschowitz, Judith; Quashie, Nekehia & Schmitz, Alina (2021): Veränderungen von Wohlbefinden und privater Unterstützung für Ältere: Ein Blick auf die Auswirkungen der COVID-19-Pandemie im Frühsommer 2020. Zeitschrift für Gerontologie und Geriatrie, 54 (3), 240-246. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00391-021-01870-2