Middle-Aged Children’s Support for Parents-In-Law and Marital Satisfaction

Abstract

This study investigated the dissimilarity in midlife adults' reports of support they and their spouse provide to their parents-in-law, gender differences in these dissimilarity patterns, and implications of this dissimilarity for marital quality. Middle-aged married participants (n = 164, mean age = 53.96 years) from Wave 2 of the Family Exchanges Study reported on the support they and their spouse provided to at least 1 living parent-in-law. Regression models examined associations of marital satisfaction with support for parents-inlaw, evaluations of support for parents-in-law, and spousal dissimilarity in support. Gender differences in own and spousal support for parents-in-law revealed matrilineal focused support among married adults. Spousal dissimilarity in support was negatively associated with marital satisfaction for middle-aged adults. This pattern suggests the importance of a perceived balance in supporting one's spouse's parents for marital quality.

Stability and change in newlyweds’ social networks over the first years of marriage.

“…Wives included significantly more of their spouse’s family and friends in their own networks than husbands, indicating wives’ greater involvement with their husbands’ network than vice versa. This gender difference is consistent with prior research indicating that wives, typically socialized to be more relational than husbands (Parks & Barta, 2018), take on the majority of caregiving responsibilities for parents and in-laws (Lee et al, 2020). In this context, it makes sense that wives were more involved with their in-laws than husbands were, and that wives gave more support to and received more support from their networks at marriage than husbands did.…”

“…Getting married may therefore be accompanied by changes in the composition of spouses’ networks, with each partner including more of the other’s family in particular, as suggested by prior work showing that family networks tend to increase in size after marriage (Kalmijn, 2012). This may be especially true for wives, who typically engage in more caretaking responsibilities for in-laws than do husbands (Lee et al, 2020).…”

“…To date, social network research on couples has seldom collected the longitudinal data necessary to resolve the tension among these accounts. Addressing this gap, the current analyses draw upon multiple waves of detailed social network data collected from a diverse sample of recently married couples to examine how their especially true for wives, who typically engage in more caretaking responsibilities for in-laws than do husbands (Lee et al, 2020).…”

Meeting Potential Parents-In-Law and Introducing a Partner to Own Parents: Prospective and Retrospective Studies

“…Findings from studies on mutual relations between young couples, their parents, and their parents-in-law indicate that favor and support are bilaterally given in various stages of their married life (Chong et al, 2017;Lee et al, 2020;Reczek et al, 2010). However, relationships with in-laws are, in many aspects, similar to any other ones.…”

Examining the impact of Co-residence with a daughter-in-law on older adult health in China: Evidence from a frailty index-based study

“…Additionally, most existing empirical studies focus on spouses and (grand)children while neglecting the impact of non-blood relatives such as sons-in-law and daughters-in-law on older adult health. Therefore, this study incorporates the increasingly focused in-law relationship into research on elderly living arrangements ( Deng et al, 2022 ; Lee et al, 2020 ; Peng et al, 2021 ). We introduce the frailty index, a comprehensive measure of older adult health status, thus providing a more holistic assessment of physical and mental health and offering a solid basis for factor analysis.…”