Divorced elders receive less care from children
Family patterns and conventions differ from culture to culture and over time, regarding who is responsible for the care of elderly parents. A hundred years ago the average life expectancy of Australians was about 20 years less than it is today. Most old people lived with one of their children, or took turns in the different homes of their children. In practice it was usually the daughters or the daughters-in-law who ended up being responsible for the hands-on caring for elderly parents. In earlier centuries it was not unusual for one of the daughters to be expected to remain single and living at home to take care of her parents.
Most Australians who end up living in nursing homes are female, and enter care at the average age of 82. They are generally independent before that, living in their homes for as long as possible. It is not a widespread Australian pattern to have a parent move in with their children, except in some of the migrant communities that practice their traditional ways of life. If they do it may be in the form of a granny flat out back, where an independent life is still sought.
In a study recently reported by Temple University looking at patterns of elder care across generations in the United States, it found that patterns of divorce, widowhood and remarriage in families can predict the degree to which adult children will feel obliged to provide care for a parent.
Research gerontologist Adam Davey, PhD reported his findings in the Journal of Advance in Life Course Research. He collected data from 1987 to 1994 from over 2000 parents, age 50 years and older, who reported on their 7000 children, in response to the National Survey of Family and Households.
He found that a typical adult child was more likely to help still-married parents with whom he or she had lived and was close to emotionally, but predicted they would be less involved with day-to-day assistance later in life for divorced aging parents. The researchers don’t believe that it is the divorce per se, but the interruption to the parent-child relationship that transpires from divorce, such as geographical separation causing emotional distancing.
He found that marital disruptions don’t necessarily damage the parent-child relationship irreparably but that they do undermine the give and take relationship of both the younger and elderly generations, and that it takes a toll.
An unexpected finding was that nonbiological children are only half as likely to provide any support to a stepparent. That had important ramifications for the elderly who had been expecting assistance from their stepchildren but found it was not forthcoming. More studies are planned looking at that issue more closely.
Davey’s team also found that the same marital transition, such as a parental divorce or remarriage, would impact children of different ages differently, as their stages of life and neediness for parental attention differed. In fact, every child had their own individual response to the same situation, leaving some wounded deeply and others untroubled. Either way, the experience stays with them indelibly and can be read in the responses to the adults who are calling on the children for help in later years. It seems the adult children may feel that as their own needs were not met in childhood they do not feel obligated to meet the parents’ needs now.
The study claims that marital disruptions earlier in a child’s life could be seen as less detrimental than those that occurred in adulthood. For instance a fathers remarriage early in a child’s life seemed to make it more likely that his children would provide help later in life, if they were not separated geographically. And the more a child’s life was spent with a divorced mother the higher the chances that the child would provide assistance when she was older.
The researchers concluded that, given that marital transitions have become so common and family life has become so complex what is surprising is that the effects on family reciprocity across generations are not even more dramatic.
American researchers have noted that the overall divorce rate peaked around 1980 and appears to be declining since then. Divorce rates per 1,000 marriages were 22.6 in 1980, 20.9 in 1990, and 18.8 in 2000. (Source: National Marriage Project, State of Our Unions, 2005) Australian statistics are similar.
The Bible is clear that marriage is intended to be lifelong. This God-given design for life is for everyone’s good, man and woman, and children, whether they are Christians or not. This Temple University study just demonstrates yet another way that divorce is harmful to individuals and to society, by producing adult children who do not feel as obligated to care for their parents as they would have otherwise.
Reference: Parental Marital Transitions and Instrumental Assistance Between Generations: A Within Family Longitudinal Analysis. Advances in Life Course Research, Volume 12, 2007, Pages 221-242; Adam Davey, David J. Eggebeen and Jyoti Savla.