Adult Children's Aid to Parents: Changes in Characteristics from 2002 to 2010

• In Event: 067 - Section on Aging and the Life Course Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 04. Social Relationships, Support, and Carework across the Life Course

Abstract

The aging of the American population has led to concern about how care will be provided to the increasing proportion of older people. Most health care is actually provided informally by family members, much of it by adult children of aging parents. While cohort differences in marital status, fertility rates, and employment behavior undoubtedly affect the availability of adult child caregivers, social context changes also seem likely to affect the viability of reasons for not providing care. Differences in individual’s characteristics affecting provision of care at different time points, both within and across families, can highlight consistency or variability in larger patterns of family caregiving. For this project we compared the 2002 and 2010 waves of the HRS Family data. Some things changed from 2002 to 2010 while others stayed the same. The respondents’ age, gender, and marital status had similar effects at both points. A parent’s health has the largest effect on whether or not a parent receives help. Mobility and IADL limitations seem to matter the most at both time points. The most interesting changes are in the children’s characteristics model segment. Children’s characteristics made less difference in 2010 than 2002. We suggest these results may be at least partially due to the recession. While it is fairly easy to measure characteristics of individuals, the social context undoubtedly affects how caregiving decisions are made and which characteristics matter more at particular times.

Authors

• Twyla J. Hill, Wichita State University

• Stacy Tiemeyer, University of Nebraska Lincoln