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Division of Parent Care Among Adult Children

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  • XI-Fen Lin
  • Douglas A Wolf
  • J Jill Suitor

Abstract

ObjectivesMany older adults rely on their children’s support to sustain community residence. Although filial norms encourage adult children to help their parents, not every child provides parent care in times of need. The majority of prior studies have adopted an individualistic perspective to examine factors associated with individual children’s caregiving behavior. This study complements previous work by using the family systems perspective to understand how caregiving responsibilities are allocated among children in the family and how the pattern of care division evolves over time.MethodData came from seven rounds of the National Health and Aging Trends Study (2011–2017), in which community-dwelling respondents were asked about all of their children and which children provided them with care. Multilevel models were estimated to examine how caregiving responsibilities were distributed among children and how the children’s caregiving efforts responded to changes in their parents’ frailty.ResultsAbout three quarters of older adults reported receiving help from only one child, and the average of monthly care hours was about 50 at baseline. As parents’ frailty increased, the proportion of children providing parents rose and the allocation of parent-care hours became more equal.DiscussionThis study underscores the importance of using the family systems perspective to better understand adult children’s caregiving behavior. Although just one adult child providing care is the most common caregiving arrangement initially, adult children tend to work with their siblings to support parents’ aging in place as parents’ need for care increases.

Suggested Citation

  • XI-Fen Lin & Douglas A Wolf & J Jill Suitor, 2020. "Division of Parent Care Among Adult Children," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 75(10), pages 2230-2239.
  • Handle: RePEc:oup:geronb:v:75:y:2020:i:10:p:2230-2239.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/geronb/gbz162
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Diederich, Freya & König, Hans-Helmut & Brettschneider, Christian, 2021. "A longitudinal perspective on inter vivos transfers between children and their parents in need of long-term care," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 19(C).
    2. AboJabel, Hanan & Ayalon, Liat, 2023. "Attitudes of Israelis toward family caregivers assisted by a robot in the delivery of care to older people: The roles of collectivism and individualism," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    3. Cho, Tsai-Chin & Park, Bona & Choi, HwaJung, 2023. "Measuring spatial availability of children for older adults with disability," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 335(C).

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