Same-gender and cross-gender friendships among the frail elderly.

In this article, both the same-gender and cross-gender friendships of a small group (N = 22) of elderly Social Service Department clients in England are described, largely in qualitative terms. The paper raises issues about the importance of cross-gender friendships to the housebound, about gender differentiation within friendships, and about the different characteristics of the two kinds of friendships--ideas that need to be tested in larger, more representative studies.