Studies examining the impact of social change on individual development and aging postulate the growing importance of flexible relationships, such as friendship. Although friendship is well known as a factor of well-being in later life, the prevalence of friendship in older adult networks and its unequal distribution has been examined only in few studies. Through secondary data analysis of two cross-sectional surveys carried out in Switzerland in 1979 and 2011, respectively, the increasing presence of close friends was confirmed. Our results show that this trend was part of a broader lifestyle change after retirement, with increasing social engagements. However, this trend does not include a general decrease in social inequalities in friendship opportunities. Overall, friendship increase among older adults has contributed to a polarization of living conditions, with a majority of active, healthy persons contrasting with a minority of individuals who accumulate penalties.

研究社会变化对个人发展和老龄化的影响的研究假设灵活的关系越来越重要，比如友谊。虽然众所周知友谊是晚年幸福的一个因素，但仅在少数研究中对老年人网络中友谊的普遍性及其不平等分布进行了研究。通过对分别于 1979 年和 2011 年在瑞士进行的两次横断面调查的二次数据分析，证实了密友的增加。我们的研究结果表明，随着社会参与度的增加，这种趋势是退休后更广泛的生活方式改变的一部分。然而，这种趋势并不包括社交机会中社会不平等的普遍减少。总体，