The network shifts of elderly immigrants: The case of Soviet Jews in Israel

This article analyzes the network dynamics of 259 Soviet immigrants, aged 62-92, who arrived in Israel during the recent wave of mass immigration. The study uses a Quick Cluster procedure with structural network characteristics as criterion variables to identify four primary network types among the study population: (1) kin network, (2) family-intensive network, (3) friend-focused network, and (4) diffuse-tie network. The pattern of shifts from pre-immigration network type to post-immigration network type reveals that the primary shifts were from the non-familial based network types to the familial-based types, and within the familial types from a wider kin network to a more restricted family-intensive network. These shifts reflect a move from networks of choice to networks of necessity on the part of many older immigrants.