The Connection Between Social Inequality And Intergenerational Transfers Between Three Generations In Europe

Abstract Family members support each other across the entire family cycle. Parents help their adult children with financial transfers and hands-on-support and childcare, while children in mid-life often support their older parents with help and care. However, there is profound social inequalities linked to intergenerational transfers. While there is some research on inequality for some types of intergenerational transfers and some transfer directions, there is still no conclusive study bringing together all different support types between multiple generations from different social backgrounds over time. In our view, taking a longitudinal multi-generational perspective is essential to capture dependencies and negotiations within families from different socio-economic backgrounds within different regional contexts. If middle-aged parents have to take care of their own older parents, they have fewer resources for their(grand-)children, who might then receive less attention and support from them. This may differ according to access to support from public or private institutions. Here, country and regional specifics have a huge impact on support patterns within the family, which can only be captured when looking into developments and change. Using six waves of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), we look at intergenerational transfers between multiple generations over time across European regions, considering mid-aged Europeans in the “sandwich” position between older parents and children and include multiple transfer directions and types over time to assess the links between social inequality and intergenerational solidarity in Europe’s ageing societies. The impact of Covid 19 on this issue will also be considered.

effects on participant interaction during intergenerational programming.To address this knowledge gap, activity leaders at five sites serving older adults and/or preschoolers received training to implement 14 evidence-based practices during intergenerational activities involving 109 older adult and 105 preschool participants over four years.We utilized multi-level modeling to test whether variations in implementation of practices were associated with variations in participants' responses to programming on a session-by-session basis.For both preschool and older adult participants, analyses revealed that the implementation of certain practices was associated with significantly more intergenerational interaction.Specifically, when person-centered best practices (e.g., leading activities that are age-and role-appropriate for older adults) were implemented, preschoolers (estimate=5.83,SD=2.11,p=0.01 and older adults (estimate=5.11,SD=.10,p=0.02)had more intergenerational interaction.Likewise, when environmental-centered best practices were implemented, such as pairing materials between intergenerational partners, preschoolers (estimate=6.05,SD=1.57, p=0.002) and older adults (estimate=6.50,SD=1.85, p=0.001) had more intergenerational interaction.Our findings reveal session-by-session variation in intergenerational interaction that can be impacted by implementation practices, which highlights the importance of training activity leaders to implement evidence-based practices.Researchers and practitioners should consider how session-by-session variation in program implementation affects participant response.

SUBJECTIVE WELL-BEING, STATUS IDENTITY, AND INTERGENERATIONAL RELATIONS AMONG THE ELDERLY
Jieming Chen, Texas A&M University -Kingsville, KIngsville, Texas, United States This study investigates the influences of intergenerational relations on the subjective wellbeing and status identity of the elderly population in China.The project draws insights from the studies of social mobility and stratification, and that of family relations and old age support.Because of widespread exchange of economic resources across generations and strong sense of connectedness among parent and adult children families that continue to exist in Chinese society today, we hypothesize that older parents' subjective sense of well-being and evaluation of their socioeconomic statuses are positively related with the socioeconomic conditions of their grown children, and the strength of the such relations with them.The study used the data from the 2013 China General Social Survey (CGSS), and the results provide fairly strong support to the hypotheses.The implications of the results on age-based stratification are discussed.

SUPPORT EXCHANGES AMONG VERY OLD PARENTS AND THEIR CHILDREN: FINDINGS FROM THE BOSTON AGING TOGETHER STUDY
Kyungmin Kim, 1 Kathrin Boerner, 2 Yijung Kim, 3 and Daniela Jopp, 4 1.Seoul National University,Seoul,Republic of Korea,2. University of Massachusetts Boston,Boston,Massachusetts,United States,3. The University of Texas at Austin,Austin,Texas,United States,4. University of Lausanne,Lausanne,Vaud,Switzerland Very old parents and their "old" children are a growing group in industrialized countries worldwide.Care needs of very old parents can be substantial, while children may also face their own age-related issues.However, little is known about support exchanges within very-old parent-child dyads.This study aimed to identify patterns of support exchanges occurring in these dyads, as well as to ascertain individual and relationship factors associated with these patterns.Participants were 114 very old parents (age ≥ 90) and their children (age ≥ 65) from the Boston Aging Together Study.Data were collected using comprehensive, semistructured in-person interviews with both dyad members, including standardized assessments of support exchanges, relationship quality, health, and perceptions of family norms.Actor-Partner Interdependence Models (APIM) were used to predict upward and downward support reported by children and parents.Both dyad members not only reported substantial upward support (given to parents by children) in all domains but also notable amounts of downward support (given to children by parents) in the domains of emotional support, listening, and socializing.Findings showed significant associations of parent functional impairment, parent and child relationship quality, and child perceptions of family obligation with upward support, and of relationship quality with downward support.Continued support exchanges among very old parents and their children indicated that intergenerational theories still hold up in very late life relationships.Healthcare professionals should be aware that attention to relationship quality and family norms might be vital to ensure that support needs are met.

THE CONNECTION BETWEEN SOCIAL INEQUALITY AND INTERGENERATIONAL TRANSFERS BETWEEN THREE GENERATIONS IN EUROPE Christian Deindl, TU Dortmund University, Dortmund, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany
Family members support each other across the entire family cycle.Parents help their adult children with financial transfers and hands-on-support and childcare, while children in mid-life often support their older parents with help and care.However, there is profound social inequalities linked to intergenerational transfers.While there is some research on inequality for some types of intergenerational transfers and some transfer directions, there is still no conclusive study bringing together all different support types between multiple generations from different social backgrounds over time.In our view, taking a longitudinal multi-generational perspective is essential to capture dependencies and negotiations within families from different socio-economic backgrounds within different regional contexts.If middle-aged parents have to take care of their own older parents, they have fewer resources for their(grand-)children, who might then receive less attention and support from them.This may differ according to access to support from public or private institutions.Here, country and regional specifics have a huge impact on support patterns within the family, which can only be captured when looking into developments and change.Using six waves of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), we look at intergenerational transfers between multiple generations over time across European regions, considering mid-aged Europeans in the "sandwich" position between older parents and children and include multiple transfer directions and types over time to assess the links between social inequality and intergenerational solidarity in Europe's ageing societies.The impact of Covid 19 on this issue will also be considered.

THE COSTS OF CONCERN: HEALTH IMPLICATIONS OF WORRIES ABOUT AGING PARENTS AND ADULT CHILDREN
Kelly Cichy, 1 and Athena Koumoutzis, 2 1. Kent State University, Kent, Ohio, United States, 2. Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, United States As their parents age and their children enter adulthood, midlife adults need to manage their worries and concerns about both generations.In midlife, worries about aging parents' health and emerging needs for support co-occur alongside worries about adult children's relationships and prolonged need for support.Research reveals links between midlife adults' worry and sleep quality, underscoring how worries compromise health and well-being.In addition to compromising sleep, worries may also contribute to poor health behaviors, such as emotional eating.Emotional eating, where individuals eat in response to stressors and negative emotions, is a significant risk factor for overeating and obesity.Less is known; however, about how midlife adults' worries contribute to poor health behaviors.To address this gap, the current study considers how midlife adults' concurrent and previous day's daily worries about aging parents and adult children are associated with daily well-being and health behaviors.Respondents are midlife adults (40-60 years) from Wave II of the Family Exchanges Study (Fingerman et al., 2009).During 7 days of daily telephone interviews, respondents indicated if they worried about their adult children and their aging parent(s), if they ate food for comfort, and their daily negative mood.Controlling for demographics, on days when midlife adults worried about their adult child(ren), they reported more negative emotions than on days without these worries (p <.05).Respondents engaged in more eating for comfort the day after they reported worrying about their mother (p < .05).Implications for aging families will be discussed.

THE EFFECTS OF SOCIAL SUPPORT ON THE PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL-BEING OF OLDER PARENTS: A LONGITUDINAL STUDY Erik Blanco, University of Southern California, Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, Los Angeles, California, United States
This study examines whether parental support (the provision of social support by older parents to adult children) and filial support (older parents' receipt of social support from adult children) influence two orthogonal dimensions of older adults' psychological wellbeing: positive feelings and negative feelings.This study also highlights the importance of accounting for parental need as a mediator of social support.A longitudinal design is used to examine the effects of social support on the psychological wellbeing of older adults at Wave 6 (1998) and Wave 8 (2004) of the Longitudinal Study of Generations.Parental support significantly increases parents' positive feelings, which suggests that, when it comes to positive feelings, it is better to give support than to receive it.Filial support findings indicate that older adults with greater level of disability demonstrate a decrease in negative feelings when they received filial support.However, this effect does not hold for older adults with lesser levels of disability, suggesting that, when it comes to older adults' negative feelings, it is better to receive support (rather than to give it) when parents are in need.Although parental and filial support have the potential to buffer stressful life transitions in old age, most parents wish to remain independent, even in later life, making them reluctant to accept filial support.The parent-adult child relationship is crucial for psychological wellbeing, especially because of increased life expectancy.

THE IMPACT OF LIVING ARRANGEMENTS AND INTERGENERATIONAL SUPPORT ON THE HEALTH STATUS OF OLDER PEOPLE IN CHINA
Yazhen Yang, Maria Evandrou, and Athina Vlachantoni, University of Southampton, Southampton, England, United Kingdom Research to-date has examined the impact of intergenerational support in terms of isolated types of support, or at one point in time, failing to provide strong evidence of the complex effect of support on older persons' wellbeing.Using the Harmonised China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (2011, 2013and 2015), this paper investigates the impact of older people's living arrangements and intergenerational support provision/ receipt on their physical and psychological wellbeing, focusing on rural/ urban differences.The results show that receiving economic support from one's adult children was a stronger predictor for higher life satisfaction among older rural residents compared to those in urban areas, while grandchild care provision was an important determinant for poor life satisfaction only for older urban residents.Receiving informal care from one's adult children was associated with a poor (I) ADL functional status and with depressive symptoms among older rural people.Meanwhile, having weekly in-person and distant contact reduced the risk of depression among older people in both rural and urban areas.The paper shows that it is important to improve the level of public economic transfers and public social care towards vulnerable older people in rural areas, and more emphasis should be placed on improving the psychological well-being of urban older residents, such as with the early diagnosis of depression.

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Caregivers' Perceptions and Experiences