Parental Marital Disruption, Family Type, and Transfers to Disabled Elderly Parents

Liliana E. Pezzin (), Robert Pollak and Barbara Schone
Additional contact information
Liliana E. Pezzin: Medical College of Wisconsin

No 3826, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper examines the family variables that affect intergenerational living arrangements and adult children's time and cash transfers to their unpartnered disabled elderly parents. The family variables we examine include parental marital status, parental marital history, whether the index child is a step child or a biological child of the parent, and whether the index child's siblings are step children or biological children of the parent. Using data from the Health and Retirement Studies - Asset and Health Dynamics Among the Oldest Old (HRS-AHEAD) surveys, we estimate the joint probabilities that an adult child provides time and/or cash transfers to a parent and analyze a five-level categorical variable capturing parent–child living arrangements. Parameter estimates suggest significant detrimental effects of parental divorce and step relationship on time transfers and on the probability of coresidence with the index child. The composition of the index child's sibling network also affects transfers and living arrangement choices of adult children. Our findings suggest that demographic changes are weakening the traditional role of the family as a support network. Because more recent cohorts of elderly persons have experienced substantially higher rates of divorce, remarriage, and step parenthood than the cohort considered in this study, our findings raise concerns about the future availability of family care.

Keywords: long-term care; intergenerational transfers; aging; family (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I10 J14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 36 pages
Date: 2008-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

Published - published in: Journals of Gerontology: Series B, 2008, 63 (6), S349-S358.

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp3826.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Parental Marital Disruption, Family Type, and Transfers to Disabled Elderly Parents (2008)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3826

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().