Advancing Age, Advantaged Youth: Parental Age and the Transmission of Resources to Children

Abstract

Using data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, we identify parental age as influential in the parental provision of economic resources, social capital and cultural capital to adolescents, as well as in parental educational expectations for their children. At the bivariate level, the relationship is curvilinear, suggesting that having comparatively young or old parents is disadvantageous to teenagers, at least with regard to resource allocation. With controls for socioeconomic background and family structure, however, the pattern typically becomes positive and linear: as the age of the parent rises, so too does the transmission of resources to adolescent offspring. These patterns hold for most economic, social and cultural resources, although the pattern is strongest for economic ones and weakest -albeit still significant-for more interactional ones. Although maternal age is the primary focus of this article, supplementary analyses also confirm a generally positive relationship between paternal age and parental resources. These results suggest that parental age may warrant attention similar to that given to family structure, race and gender.

Adult child-parent bonds and life course criminality

“…Given the declines in stable manufacturing jobs (Booth et al, 1999), increased age at first marriage, and high rates of divorce (Cherlin, 1992), adult parental relationships fit within the larger life course framework as social forces that potentially increase ties to conventional society and facilitate sustained patterns of criminal desistance. Positive relationships with one's parents can be conceptualized as an important source of social and financial capital (Powell, Steelman, & Carini, 2006) and indeed may be especially important for those who lack elements of the traditional "respectability package" of marriage and stable employment. Thus, in the current study it was hypothesized that strong relationships between adult children and parents will be associated with a pattern of criminal desistance, even after other adult social bonds and initial variations in delinquency involvement have been taken into account.…”

How Are Children of Older Mothers Doing? Evidence from the United Kingdom

“…To the extent that older first-time mothers have, on average, relatively advantageous socio-economic profiles and might be better prepared to take on the responsibilities of parenthood (Powell, Steelman, and Carini 2006), the demographic literature has tended to view the rising mean age at first birth as potentially beneficial for children's well-being, such as for their cognitive and social development (Martin 2004, McLanahan 2004. Conversely, the demographic literature has given less attention to the medical literature's argument that childbearing at ages 35 and above may involve health complications for both mother and children during pregnancy and at the time of birth (Bewley, Davies, and Braude 2005).…”

“…Demographers, by building on the evidence that older mothers are likely to be socio-economically advantaged and more mature, have implicitly tended to see an older maternal age at first birth as, potentially, positively associated with children's cognitive and socio-emotional well-being (Mare and Tzeng 1989, Powell, Steelman, and Carini 2006, Martin 2004. For example, Mclanahan (2004 p.209) states that "an increase in maternal age is seen as an increase in parental resources", which are positively associated with parenting quality and with children's cognitive and social development.…”

Cultural participation and time restrictions

“…With respect to children's socialization and upbringing, research has established that not only is parental social background of importance, a family's composition makes a difference as well (Powell et al, 2006;Sandefur et al, 1992). Coleman (1988) argues that the transmission of parental resources depends on parent-child bonding and interaction.…”

“…Second, the mother's age at the birth of a child seems to be a relevant predictor of successful accumulation and reproduction of resources (Powell et al, 2006). Delayed childbearing is usually a conscious choice and results in older mothers.…”