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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Relationships between parents and their adult children
— a West European typology of late-life families | | Author(s) | Pearl A Dykstra, Tineke Fokkema |
| Journal title | Ageing and Society, vol 31, part 4, May 2011 |
| Pages | pp 545-569 |
| Source | http://www.journals.cambridge.org/aso |
| Keywords | Family relationships ; Parents ; Children [offspring] ; Cross national surveys ; Europe. |
| Annotation | The study aimed to challenge the hypothesis that family solidarity patterns are divided between an individualistic north and a famialistic south. Using multiple dimensions of intergenerational solidarity drawn from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, the authors developed a typology of late-life families which is robust across northern, central and southern regions. The four types were: (a) descending familialism: living nearby, frequent contact, endorsement of family obligation norms, and primarily help in kind from parents to children, (b) ascending familialism: living nearby, frequent contact, endorsement of family obligation norms, and primarily help in kind from children to parents, (c) supportive-at-distance: not living nearby, frequent contact, refutation of family obligation norms, and primarily financial transfers from parents to adult children, (d) autonomous: not living nearby, little contact, refutation of family obligation norms, and few support exchanges. The four types are common in each European country, though the distributions differ. The findings suggest that scholars should abandon the idea that a particular country can be characterised by a single dominant type of late-life family. Socio-demographic differentials in family type follow predictable patterns, underscoring the validity of the developed typology. (JL). |
| Accession Number | CPA-110513005 A |
| Classmark | DS:SJ: SR: SS: 3K: 74 |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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