Stability and Change in Intergenerational Family Relations Across Two Decades: Findings From the German Ageing Survey, 1996–2014

Steinbach, Anja; Mahne, Katharina; Klaus, Daniela; Hank, Karsten

doi:10.1093/geronb/gbz027

Cited by 21 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…Keeping in touch via telephone, smartphone, or the Internet might indeed be sufficient for maintaining the relationship. Recent findings of Steinbach et al (2019) are in line with this idea: on an aggregate level, they found a high stability regarding frequency of contact and emotional closeness within intergenerational relationships in Germany between 1996 and 2014 despite an increasing spatial distance between older parents and their children. Also opposite to what we expected, an increasing frequency of receiving emotional support was associated with higher propensities of migrating.…”

Section: Conclusion and Discussionsupporting

confidence: 58%

Geographic Proximity to Parents, Intergenerational Support Exchange, and Migration Within Germany

Hünteler

Mulder

2020

Eur J Population

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Previous research on internal migration has emphasised the importance of local ties to family members outside the household, and to parents in particular. Family members who live close to an individual's place of residence represent a form of local social capital that could make migrating costlier, and therefore less likely. This idea has been empirically supported. Yet, how family ties bind remains largely unexplained. We assume that intergenerational support is a manifestation of local social capital, and that spatial proximity is needed for support to be exchanged. Thus, we used mediation analysis that includes explicit measures of support exchanges between parents and their adult-children born in 1971-1973, 1981-1983, and 1991-1993 to explain the binding effect of living close to parents. Logistic regression models of migrating a distance of more than 40 km were conducted using eight waves of the German pairfam data. Living close to one's parents was indeed found to be negatively associated with the likelihood of migration, and part of this association could be explained through intergenerational support: the more the instrumental support an adult child exchanged with her/his parent, the less likely she/he was to migrate. Receiving emotional support from the parents was associated with an increase in migration propensity. Neither giving emotional help nor receiving help with childcare functioned as mediators. It thus appears that adult children are particularly likely to value the proximity of their parents when they are exchanging instrumental support, but that the emotional bond between adult children and their parents can often be maintained over longer distances.

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Section: Conclusion and Discussionsupporting

confidence: 58%

Geographic Proximity to Parents, Intergenerational Support Exchange, and Migration Within Germany

Hünteler

Mulder

2020

Eur J Population

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“…Although older persons' social support networks tend to also consist of non-kin (Heinze et al, 2015;Li, Ji, & Chen, 2014;Messeri et al, 1993;Nguyen, 2017), many studies have shown that children remain a very important source of support and social contact for aging parents (e.g. Hareven, 1994;Steinbach et al, 2019;Treas & Gubernskaya, 2012;Wolff & Kasper, 2006). In line with these findings, the current study showed that children are beneficial for older women's mental health.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 83%

“…The social support that children provide can buffer the negative mental health impact of stressful events that many people experience in later life, such as the onset of disability (Taylor & Lynch, 2004). Also, current cohorts of older people are not less likely than preceding cohorts to have frequent contacts with adult children (Steinbach, Mahne, Klaus, & Hank, 2019;Treas & Gubernskaya, 2012). Older persons with fewer children may be at greater risk of social isolation (Marcil-Gratton & L egar e, 1992;Van den Broek, Tosi, & Grundy, 2019), which is harmful for mental health (Hawton et al, 2011).…”

Section: Background and Hypothesismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Older persons with fewer children may be at greater risk of social isolation (Marcil-Gratton & L egar e, 1992;Van den Broek, Tosi, & Grundy, 2019), which is harmful for mental health (Hawton et al, 2011). Children may be particularly important for the mental health of older women, as mothers are more likely than fathers to keep in frequent contact with their children (Greenwell & Bengtson, 1997;Steinbach et al, 2019;Van der Pas et al, 2007) and to rely on them for emotional support (Antonucci & Akiyama, 1987;Van der Pas et al, 2007).…”

Section: Background and Hypothesismentioning

confidence: 99%

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Is having more children beneficial for mothers’ mental health in later life? Causal evidence from the national health and aging trends study

Broek

2020

Aging & Mental Health

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Objectives: Members of the baby boom cohorts had fewer children than their parents. Given that adult children are an important source of social support in later life, this may have implications for the mental health of new cohorts of older people. This study investigates whether having additional children protects white mothers aged 65 and older against mental health problems. Method: Data are from Wave 1 and Wave 5 of the National Health and Aging Trends Study (n ¼ 3,845). An instrumental variable approach exploiting the preference for mixed-sex offspring is used to estimate the causal effect of additional children on the risk of elevated depression and anxiety symptomatology. Results: The estimated instrumental variable model shows that additional children reduce the risk of suboptimal mental health among white mothers aged 65 and older. Conclusion: Results suggest that declines in higher-order births may put new cohorts of older women at increased risk of suboptimal mental health.

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“…Despite the socio-demographic changes that occurred in recent decades and their theoretical importance in shaping intergenerational relationships , those few studies which have investigated trends over time have found relatively stable exchanges (Steinbach et al 2020, Kalmijn & De Vries 2009, Treas & Guberskaya 2012, and strong resilience in relationships between older parents and their adult children measured using frequency of contacts, rating of affections, or reciprocity. Using the German Ageing Study, Steinbach and colleagues (2020) explained this stability hypothesising that "family members appear to react to variations in social and economic circumstances with behavioural changes allowing them to maintain high levels of overall intergenerational solidarity (p.904)".…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Change is (not) Gonna Come: A twenty-year overview of Italian grandparents-grandchildren exchanges

Pasqualini¹,

Gessa²,

Tomassini³

2021

Preprint

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Levels of coresidence, residential proximity, face-to-face contacts and intergenerational support exchanges remain overall high and stable across European countries. However, to date, few studies have focused on trends in grandparent-grandchild relations. Therefore, this study aims to investigate whether and to what extent grandparent-grandchild exchanges have changed over time. We used data from the Italian Surveys on Family, covering the years 1998-2016, and considered three different currencies of exchanges between grandparents and their grandchildren (coresidence, face-to-face contacts, and grandchild care provision). Our results showed an astonishing stability over time in these indicators of grandparent-grandchild exchanges, with only a small reduction in daily contacts. Also, we found little changes in the associations between such indicators of intergenerational exchanges and the demographic and socio-economic determinants usually used to explain them. Despite changes among Italian grandparents such as increases in their age profile, in education, and in marital disruption, the relations between grandparents and their grandchildren remain stable over time with generally high levels of intergenerational exchanges.

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Stability and Change in Intergenerational Family Relations Across Two Decades: Findings From the German Ageing Survey, 1996–2014

Cited by 21 publications

References 35 publications

Geographic Proximity to Parents, Intergenerational Support Exchange, and Migration Within Germany

Geographic Proximity to Parents, Intergenerational Support Exchange, and Migration Within Germany

Is having more children beneficial for mothers’ mental health in later life? Causal evidence from the national health and aging trends study

A Change is (not) Gonna Come: A twenty-year overview of Italian grandparents-grandchildren exchanges

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