Children’s impact on the mental health of their older mothers and fathers: findings from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe

Abstract

The relation between social support and mental health has been thoroughly researched and structural characteristics of the social network have been widely recognised as being an important component of social support. The aim of this paper is to clarify the association between children and depressive mood states of their older parents. Based on international comparative data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe we analysed how the number of children, their proximity and the frequency of contact between older parents and their children are associated with the mental health of older people, using the EURO-D index. Our results indicate a positive association of children and depressive mood since childless men and women report more depressive symptoms. Moreover, few contacts with children were associated with an increased number of depressive symptoms. The family status was related to mental health as well: older men and women living with a spouse or partner had the lowest levels of depression. Interestingly, the presence of a spouse or partner was more relevant for the mental health of older people than the presence of, or contact with, their children.

Under one roof: The effect of co-residing with adult children on depression in later life

“…Most importantly, we expected the number and gender of the children to have direct effects on parent's mental health beyond those via co-residence, and we therefore decided not to use these instruments in our analysis. A second possible explanation refers to the different cultural norms on intergenerational solidarity and institutional arrangements that may crowd out family support in European countries (Buber & Engelhardt, 2008). Partly as a result, the experience of co-residence may be fundamentally different for older parents in European and Asian countries, potentially leading to different effects on their mental health.…”

“…More frequent contact with children may reduce symptoms of depression in older age (Buber & Engelhardt, 2008), but co-residing with adult children may also increase conflict between children and older parents, and lead to a loss of autonomy and independence in older age (Hughes & Waite, 2002;Lang & Schutze, 2002;Silverstein, Chen, & Heller, 1996). This relationship may be crucial to understanding the increasing burden of old-age depression in ageing societies.…”

“…By contrast, using a similar identification strategy, studies in Indonesia and Japan (Johar & Maruyama, 2013;Maruyama, 2012) have found that co-residence increases the risk of reporting poorer health and depression among older parents. Whether these findings apply to European countries is unclear, however, due to different cultural norms on intergenerational solidarity and institutional arrangements that may crowd out family support (Buber & Engelhardt, 2008). For example, Aranda (2015) used propensity sore matching and found that 'doubling up' (two or more generations in the same household) has no impact on the risk of depression among parents in Nordic or Western European countries, while it decreases depressive symptoms for older people in Southern European countries.…”

Influence of Offspring on Quality of Life among Cancer Patients and Survivors: Results from the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging (KLoSA), 2008-2011

“…Many previous studies (Evenson and Simon, 2005;Buber, 2008) on the association between offspring and health outcomes have identified relatively large, significant, and positive U-shaped effects. However, our results suggest that QOL in patients with cancer significantly increases with number of offspring, in contrast to what was observed in controls (Table 3).…”

European ageing research in the social, behavioural and health areas: a multidimensional account

“…The next most widely cited article by HPOP deals critically with the issue of loneliness in older age (Dykstra 2009). A relatively highly cited social research article is the study by Buber and Engelhardt (2008), which looks at children's impact on older parental mental health, once again using SHARE data.…”