Does Gender Top Family Ties? Within-Couple and between-Sibling Sharing of Elderly Care

Abstract

Most elderly care continues to be delivered informally within families. Yet we still lack a thorough understanding of how care responsibilities are shared across both family ties and generations. We explore the gender dimension of caregiving in the distribution of elderly care between couple members (care provided to parents and parents-in-law and to children or grandchildren) and its associations with siblings' sex composition in a range of European countries. Using SHARE data and multinomial multilevel models, we test how responsibility for elderly care is shared across children and mediated by their partners and their siblings' sex composition as well as how it is combined with other downward care responsibilities, towards children and grandchildren. Results confirm the very gendered nature of elderly care. But who do men shift elderly care responsibilities to? We find that elderly care is more likely shifted to sisters than brothers, especially when caregiving becomes intense. We also find that the lower contribution by sons does not seem to prompt transfers of care responsibilities to their female partners within couples. Finally, although upward and downward caring responsibilities might compete, we find that individuals who are more inclined to provide care tend to do so in both directions.

Older parents and filial support obligations: a comparison of family solidarity norms between native and immigrant populations in Italy

“…Furthermore, in a similar way but to a greater extent than observed in other European societies or the United States of America (USA), in Italy the division of elder-care work is quite gendered: older parents’ care needs – especially when personal care is needed and no spouse is available – are more frequently fulfilled by daughters than sons. In other words, when other providers are not available, sons are more likely to pass the burden of providing intense personal care on to the shoulders of their sisters, whereas they do not appear to share such responsibility with their female partners (Grigoryeva, 2017; Luppi and Nazio, 2019).…”

The impact of rural emptiness on gender relations in postsocialist Albania

“…The allocation of informal care responsibilities to women within the household is on the increase globally (Carbó & Garcia‐Orellán, 2020; Grigoryeva, 2017). Demographic changes throughout Europe in recent decades such as population ageing, verticalisation of the family and decreasing family size and horizontal ties have led to a growing demand–supply gap for family‐based care (Luppi & Nazio, 2019). These responsibilities tend to be allocated to a single person, invariably a woman (Verbakel, 2018).…”

Does Children’s Education Improve Parental Longevity? Evidence From Two Educational Reforms in England

“…Family ties are gendered in many ways (Connidis and Barnett, 2019;Rossi and Rossi, 1990). Research on intergenerational contact, support and care shows that sons and daughters differ in the level and kind contact and support they provide to parents (Grundy and Shelton, 2001;Luppi and Nazio, 2019;Patterson and Margolis, 2019) and that, likewise, there are differences between mothers and fathers in ties and received support (Kalmijn, 2007(Kalmijn, , 2019. The way sons' and daughters' education affects parental health may differ and this, in turn, could be dependent on the sex of the parent as well as their socioeconomic position.…”