Research from the United States has shown significant increases in the prevalence of three-generation households and in households consisting solely of grandparents and grandchildren. Such shifts in household composition, which are associated with socio-economic disadvantage, may reflect the activation of grandparents as a latent network of support in response to social and demographic changes such as rising partnership disruption. However, to date, little is known in Europe about trends in grandparent households or whether these households are also likely to be disadvantaged. Moreover, we know little about how the familistic and defamilised policy environments in Europe may affect the activation of such latent kin networks. Employing the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series—International and the Office for National Statistics’ Longitudinal Study for England and Wales, we used multivariate techniques to investigate changes in prevalence over time in co-residence with a grandchild across Austria, England and Wales, France, Greece, Portugal, Romania, and the United States. We expected increases in grandparent households in Portugal and Greece, familistic societies with few public alternatives to family support. However, only Romania (like the US) showed an increase in the percentage of people aged 40 and over co-residing with their grandchildren in three-generation households between the late 1970s and 2002. Given rises in poverty and limited support for low-income families in Romania, rises in grandparent coresidence may reflect a coping strategy among poorer families to increasing financial hardship. Regardless of the trends, grandparent households in all the countries studied remained associated with socio-economic disadvantage.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1007/s10433-018-0474-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorised users.

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There has long been an interest in the United Kingdom about whether and how changes in family life affect support for older people, but nevertheless the consequences of partnership dissolution for late-life support have been little researched. Using data from the British Household Panel Study (1991–2003), this study investigated the longitudinal association between partnership dissolution and two types of support for 1,966 people aged 70 or more years: (i) informal support from children in the form of contacts and help (e.g. household assistance including care), and (ii) formal support from community care services (i.e. health visitor or district nurse, home-help and meals-on-wheels). The paper also examines the level of reported support among: (i) all parents aged 70 or more years and (ii) 1,453 unpartnered parents in the same age group (i.e. those lacking the most important source of support in later life: a spouse). We found diversity in the experience of partnership dissolution in the past lives of people aged 70 or more years. Patterns of support varied by the respondent's age, whether partnered, the timing and type of partnership dissolution, and by gender, having a daughter and health status. Overall, however, partnership dissolution did not show the expected detrimental relationship with later-life support. Health needs and increasing age were strongly associated with increases in contact and informal and formal help, regardless of family history.

Global population aging has led to considerable disquiet about future support for frail older people; however, the determinants are poorly understood. Moreover, most industrialized societies have witnessed considerable changes in family behavior (e.g., rises in divorce and declining fertility). Such trends may have adversely affected the support systems of older people; nonetheless, only recently has research begun to address this issue. Employing data from the longitudinal British Household Panel Survey (1991)(1992)(1993)(1994)(1995)(1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003) and the 1998 Indagine Multiscopo sulle Famiglie "Famiglia, soggetti sociali e condizione dell'infanzia," we investigated the association between family disruptions due to divorce, separation, or death and three key dimensions of informal support: (i) frequency of contact with unrelated friends (among all respondents aged 65 years and over); (ii) co-residence with children (among unmarried mothers aged 65 years and over); and (iii) regular or frequent help received from children (e.g., household assistance including care) among parents aged 65 years and over. In addition, we conducted a comparative investigation of the relationship between family disruptions and the use of home care services (i.e., health visitor or district nurse; home help; meals-on-wheels)

Marital disruption (i.e. due to death, divorce or separation) at older ages is an important issue as it removes the usual primary source of help and support: a husband or wife. To date, few studies have investigated the support implications (both , here defined as perceived support and social embeddedness and, defined as use of domiciliary care services) of marital disruptions in later life. This issue needs addressing as widow(er)hood and divorce are increasingly occurring at older ages. Employing data from the longitudinal British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) (1991-2003) we investigated the association between marital disruption and first loss of (a) perceived support and (b) at least weekly contact with at least one non-relative friend, among those aged 50 and over. We also examined first use of domiciliary care services (i.e. health visitor or district nurse, home help or meals-on-wheels) among those aged 70 and over. Our findings show that marital separation increased the odds of losing perceived support whereas widow(er)hood showed no significant association among people aged 50 and over. Separation and widow(er)hood increased the odds of losing weekly contact with non-relative friends (although the odds were greater for separation) in this age group. Finally, widow(er)hood increased the odds of using domiciliary care services among respondents aged 70 and over.