Year: 2019
Type: article
Abstract: Parents are increasingly supporting their children well into adulthood and often serve as a safety net during periods of economic and marital instability. Improving life expectancies and health allows parents to provide for their children longer, but greater union dissolution among parents can weaken the safety net they can create for their adult children. Greater mortality, nonmarital childbearing, and divorce among families with lower socioeconomic status may be reinforcing inequalities across generations. This article examines two cohorts aged 25-49 from the 1988 (n = 7,246) and 2013 (n = 7,014) Panel Study of Income Dynamics Roster and Transfers Files. In 1988, adults with a college degree had two surviving parents living together for 1.8 years longer than nongraduates. This disparity increased to 6.8 years in 2013. This five-year increase in disparity was driven predominantly by higher rates of union dissolution among parents of adults with less education. Growing differences in paternal mortality also contributed to the rise in inequality.
Source: Demography
Author: Heeju Sohn
Language: English
Subfield: Demography
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Reduced inequalities
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $2,690
Funders: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, National Institute on Aging, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, California Center for Population Research, University of California, Los Angeles, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
Awards: UCLA/RAND HEALTH SERVICES RESEARCH TRAINING PROGRAM, G2507980080, Early-Life Health Consequences of Unequal Kinship Networks, California Center for Population Research (CCPR) at UCLA, Early-Life Health Consequences of Unequal Kinship Networks, Health and Well-being Over the Life Course and Across Multiple Generations, Family Dynamics, Fertility, and Investments in Children across Generations
OpenAlex ID: W2954595040