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News for Baby Boomers
Baby Boomers More Caring of Aging Parents than
Earlier Generation
Senior citizens,
however, make fewer
demands as they age
 December
1, 2006 Popular notions that the institution of the family is in
decline were stopped in their tracks today by a new study showing that
baby boomers born in the 1950's and 60's are more committed to caring
for their senior citizen parents than were their own parents. The
research also found that the very oldest Americans - assumed to be those
most in need of care - valued it the least.
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The study from the University of Southern
California's Leonard Davis School of Gerontology is published in the
current issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family.
"Our study provides evidence to the resilience of
families," said Daphna Gans, lead author of the study and a doctoral
candidate at the USC Davis School. "You expect the younger generation
would be lower than the generation before. But our results suggest that
families are still able to instill strong attitudes towards familial
responsibilities even in light of changing family dynamics and forms."
The research is one of a set of studies looking at
attitudes and behaviors toward caring for aging parents using the USC
Longitudinal Study of Generations, which followed individuals from 333
families over two generations.
For this study Gans and co-author Merril
Silverstein, professor of gerontology and sociology at USC, examined
expected behaviors of adult children towards their aging parents over
the 15-year period from 1985 through 2000.
Among their findings, an adult child's desire to
care for an aging parent peaks at the age of 51 when individuals are
most likely to be called upon to provide parental support and women
consistently express stronger familial obligations towards their parents
than men.
The study also showed that the oldest respondents,
presumably those most in need of care, valued it the least.
The researchers say this illustrates that as
parents get closer to death, they become more altruistic toward their
children that is, they make fewer demands of them in spite of their
growing needs and increasing dependence.
"Very old adults give priority to their adult
children and grandchildren and want to see them thrive, even if it means
getting less care then they may actually need," said Silverstein.
Both generations surveyed show a slight dip in
attitudes towards parental caregiving starting in the 1980's. However
throughout the 15 years studied, the younger generation responded more
favorably to providing care than the older generation ever did.
The pair's earlier findings, along with Frances
Yang of Harvard Medical School, showed that daughters were most likely
to give support and mothers were most likely to get it. In fact, a
mother in good health is more likely to receive support from children
than a father in poor health. (Journal of Family Issues, August 2006)
Analyses for the current study were performed using
four waves of data from the USC Longitudinal Study of Generations.
Estimations were made using 4,527 observations from 1,627 individuals
nested within 333 families. Findings were discussed in terms of the
flexibility of responsibility levels for older generations over the
entire lifespan.
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