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In a 1985 article, Judith Stacey and Barrie Thorne argued that the tendency to treat "gender" as an unproblematized dichotomous variable functioned to contain feminist influence in sociology. Although there has clearly been a revolution in gender studies since that time, there are still whole areas of sociological investigation where this revolution is at best incomplete. One such area involves the literature on the care that adult children provide to aging parents. Using arguments relating to gender-as-performance and hegemonic masculinity, the authors investigate conceptualizations of gender and masculinity in a sample of fifty-eight adult sons who provide care to an aging parent. What emerges from the interviews with these male caregivers is a vision of masculinity that is in some ways quite different from the hegemonic ideal. And yet, like earlier investigators who have studied hegemonic masculinity, the authors also find that the existence of a nonhegemonic vision of masculinity does not threaten the hegemonic ideal.

This article examines the influence of specific characteristics of the caregiving relationship, including coresidence and being the primary provider of care, on sons' filial care involvement. This work focuses on the gendered nature of care by classifying tasks as traditional or nontraditional for men. Data for this research come from the Work and Family Survey (1991-1993) conducted by the Work and Eldercare Research Group of CARNET: The Canadian Aging Research Network, and is based on a sample of 440 men who provide some type of assistance to only one older parent or parent-in-law. The framework that guides this work is structured on concepts related to family obligations or motivations to provide care. This research finds that coresiding predicts greater involvement in nontraditional care; being the primary provider of care predicts greater involvement in traditional care. Results are discussed in relation to the conceptual framework that guides this research.

The authors examine the impact of gender, marital status, and parent status on emotional closeness, confiding, and contact among siblings in middle and later life. Using data from a multistage quota sample that includes 528 respondents aged 55 and older who have one or more siblings, characteristics of both the respondent and the sibling or sibling network are studied. Separate analyses are conducted for the entire sibling network and for the sibling of greatest closeness, confiding, and contact. Women and respondents with sisters, the single (never married), and the childless tend to have more active sibling ties than their counterparts. Several control variables (number of siblings, geographic proximity, age, and education) are also significant. Emotional closeness to siblings is an important factor related to confiding and contact. Findings are discussed in the context of socially proscribed familial obligation and emotional attachment as bases for involvement with siblings.

Using data from a study of 678 adults aged 55 and older, this article examines the role of siblings in four social support networks: confidants, companions, emotional support, and instrumental support, with a particular focus on the impact of gender and marital status on their role. Two types of analyses are used: probability analysis to determine the likelihood of specifying a given tie as a network member and compositional analysis of network membership. Three models of support (hierarchical compensatory, task specificity, functional specificity of relationships) are used to discuss the significant results regarding the probability of including a sibling in each network and the dominance of siblings in the overall composition of each network. The single, especially women, the childless, and widowed women stand out as having particularly involved sibling ties. Greatest support is found for the functional specificity model and for the value of combining probability and compositional analyses.