Work

Competing Demands from Aging Parents and Adult Children in Two Cohorts of American Women

Year: 2015

Type: article

Abstract: In late middle age, individuals may face competing demands on their time and financial resources from elderly parents and young adult children. This study uses the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to examine changes over time in the probability of having children and living parents for women age 45 to 64. We compare two cohorts: those born in the 1920s and 1930s and those born in the 1940s and 1950s. We find that there has been a dramatic increase in the probability of having children and living parents and that this increase has been driven mainly by changes in life expectancy of the parent generation. We further examine transfers of money and co-residence for women in the later cohort. We find that while women may not give to parents and children concurrently, approximately thirty percent of them have provided support to both parents and children at some point in the past.

Source: Population and Development Review

DOI: 10.1111/j.1728-4457.2015.00029.x

Authors: Emily E. Wiemers, Suzanne M. Bianchi

Institutions: University of Massachusetts Boston, University of California, Los Angeles

Language: English

Topic: Intergenerational Family Dynamics and Caregiving

Subfield: Sociology and Political Science

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Reduced inequalities

Open Access status: green

Funders: National Institute on Aging, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development