Parental Marital Disruption, Family Type, and Transfers to Disabled Elderly Parents

L. E. Pezzin, R. A. Pollak, B. S. Schone
2008 The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences  
Objectives: To investigate the effect of parental marital status, marital history and family type on intergenerational living arrangements and adult children's time and cash transfers to their unpartnered disabled elderly parents. Methods: Data from the Assets and Health Dynamics of the Elderly (AHEAD) survey are used to estimate the joint probabilities that an adult child provides time and/or cash transfers to a parent and to analyze a five-level categorical variable capturing parent-child
more » ... ng arrangements. Results: Estimates suggest significant detrimental effects of parental divorce and step relationship on time transfers and on the probability of coresidence with the index child. Family type, as captured by the kin composition of the elderly parent's network of adult children, also affected transfers and living arrangement choices of adult children. Discussion: The findings that transfers from adult children to their unpartnered disabled elderly parents depend on parental marital status and kin relationship suggest that changing family patterns are altering the traditional role of the family as a support network. These findings raise concerns about the care likely to be available to future cohorts of elderly persons who will have experienced substantially higher rates of divorce, remarriage, and step parenthood than the cohort considered in this study.
doi:10.1093/geronb/63.6.s349 pmid:19092044 fatcat:pmae3txsivhu7nuqdmmbm6n6wu