Introduction : More than a million, or almost half, of the 60+ population (46%) in Sweden today are singles (never married, divorced, widows/widowers), a majority are women and the actual number as well as the proportion of divorcees is increasing. Still, we know very little about the intimate lives of non-married elderly people or about re-partnering in later life. This presentation focuses attitudes to, expectations on, and experiences of new intimate relations in later life.

Method : It is based on results from a new representative survey of 3 000 Swedes, 60-90 years old (boosted with regards to non-married people), that was developed from questions generated by a recent qualitative interview study with 28 Swedes who had established a new relationship after the age of 60.

Results : We describe attitudes, expectations and experiences in the older population generally, but also in different groups defined on the basis of gender, class, life-course phase, sexual orientation, degree of urbanization and intimacy career. We also focus the importance of intimate relationships for older people’s quality of life, and reason about how structures of informal support may look for older people who enter new intimate relationships.

Conclusion : As of november 2012 we are still in an early phase of the survey work, thus conclusions are pending.