Reciprocal associations between affectual, associational, and normative solidarity with parents during children’s early to established adulthood

Abstract

Intergenerational solidarity has become increasingly important to understand, as close family members mobilize the provision of social support across generations and contribute to family wellbeing. However, less is known about continuity and change in normative (eldercare norms), affectual, and associational solidarity with mothers and fathers as children emerge into full or established adulthood. Therefore, we focused on reciprocal associations between three dimensions of intergenerational solidarity (normative, affectual, and associational) as reported by young‐adult children from their early twenties to late thirties. Data were derived from respondents in the Longitudinal Study of Generations: daughters reported about relationships with 291 mother–father pairs and sons reported about relationships with 309 mother–father pairs in 2000, 2005, and 2016. Autoregressive cross‐lagged models prospectively predicted mutual influences among the three dimensions of solidarity across daughter‐parent and son‐parent relationships. In addition, multiple group analysis was conducted to examine the children's gender difference. We found that normative solidarity and emotional closeness with mothers were mutually reinforcing in daughters’ and sons’ parental relationships. However, normative solidarity predicted emotional closeness with fathers in both daughter‐parent and son‐parent relationships. The study concludes that sons and daughters establish eldercare norms based on emotional components of solidarity with mothers, and suggest that filial duty is a key reason why mother‐child relations become close over the family life course.

Do religious transitions from early to established adulthood predict filial elder‐care norms?

“…Finally, we found that young adults' perceived emotional closeness with mothers and mothers' health status were associated with their filial elder‐care norms, whereas emotional closeness with fathers and fathers' health status were not associated with young adults' filial elder‐care norms. These results for mothers are consistent with research showing that filial elder‐care norms are predicted by affectual solidarity with parents (Hwang, Kim, Cheng, et al, 2021), and are also triggered by the declining health of parents (Gans & Silverstein, 2006; Silverstein et al, 2006). The absence of findings for fathers suggests that quality of relationship and the need for help are generating norms but in a gendered manner.…”

Intergenerational Solidarity With Grandparents in Emerging Adulthood: Associations With Providing Support to Older Parents in Established Adulthood

“…With conflict included in the model, the intergenerational solidarity paradigm better addressed the paradoxical, complicated nature of family life through the identification of various family types using case clustering approaches. The intergenerational solidarity paradigm, as a long-standing and fundamental measurement model of intergenerational relations, has been applied in numerous studies of parent–child relationships at various stages of the life course and used to understand filial arrangements and sources of well-being among aging parents (Hwang et al, 2021; Roberts & Bengtson, 1990; Silverstein et al, 1995, 1997).…”

Gender Inequality in Intergenerational Contact After Parental Separation in the Digital Era

“…Previous studies on parent-child gender combinations emphasize the emotional closeness of mother-daughter ties, involving more frequent contacts than father-son or opposite-gender dyads (Rossi and Rossi, 1990;Fingerman et al, 2020b). Mothers tend to play a more central role in transmitting filial obligation and socializing their daughters to serve as kin-keepers who foster contact and intra-family exchanges of resources and care (Arendell, 2000;Hwang et al, 2022). Thus, we expect that parental separation is less detrimental for mother-daughter contact than for contacts between mothers and sons, and between fathers and sons or daughters (Hypothesis 1b: Female advantage hypothesis).…”