Differential Costs of Raising Grandchildren on Older Mother-Adult Child Relations in Black and White Families.

Drawing from theories of affect, role strain and stress processes, we studied the impact of raising grandchildren on older mothers' relationships with the adult offspring whose children they raised, with particular attention to how these patterns differ by race and ethnicity. We used mixed-methods data collected from 531 older mothers regarding their relationships with 1935 of their adult children as part of the Within-Family Differences Study. Multilevel regression analyses showed that raising grandchildren was associated with greater mother-adult child closeness in Black families; however, in White families, raising grandchildren was associated with greater mother-adult child conflict. Qualitative analyses revealed that these differences could be explained by the tendency of Black grandmothers to emphasize positive aspects of raising grandchildren, compared to White grandmothers, who viewed raising grandchildren as demanding and who described their exchanges with their adult children as unequal. Overall, our findings reflect racial and ethnic differences in intergenerational solidarity.

A Coordinated Data Analysis of Four Studies Exploring Age Differences in Social Interactions and Loneliness During a Global Pandemic.

OBJECTIVES: Examining loneliness and social isolation during population-wide historical events may shed light on important theoretical questions about age differences, including whether these differences hold across different regions and the timecourse of the unfolding event. We used a systematic, preregistered approach of coordinated data analysis (CDA) of four studies (total N = 1,307; total observations = 18,492) that varied in design (intensive repeated-measures and cross-sectional), region, timing, and timescale during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. METHOD: We harmonized our datasets to a common period within 2020-2021 and created a common set of variables. We used a combination of ordinary least squares regression and multilevel modeling to address the extent to which there was within- and between-person variation in the associations between social isolation and loneliness, and whether these associations varied as a function of age. RESULTS: Within- and between-person effects of social interactions were negatively associated with loneliness in one study; in follow-up sensitivity analyses, these patterns held across early and later pandemic periods. Across all datasets, there was no evidence of age differences in the within-person or between-person associations of social interactions and loneliness. DISCUSSION: Applying the CDA methodological framework allowed us to detect common and divergent patterns of social interactions and loneliness across samples, ages, regions, periods, and study designs.

Childhood Parental Disfavoritism and Chinese Adults' Psychological Well-Being in Middle and Later Life: The Moderating Effect of Gender.

OBJECTIVES: Parental differential treatment of children, particularly disfavoritism, has been found to detrimentally affect adult children's psychological well-being in the United States. However, no study has investigated the long-reaching influence of parental disfavoritism in China, where there is an absence of equal treatment norms. Drawing from theories of social comparison, life course, and gender dynamics in China, we tested how perceptions of childhood parental disfavoritism affect midlife and older Chinese adults' depressive symptoms, and how the effects differ by own and parent's gender. METHODS: Random-intercept models were used based on a sample of 17,682 midlife and older Chinese adults, drawn from 5 waves of China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study. RESULTS: Recollections of childhood parental disfavoritism were associated with higher depressive symptoms among Chinese adults. Perceptions of paternal disfavoritism predicted both men's and women's depressive symptoms, whereas perceptions of maternal disfavoritism predicted women's depressive symptoms only. Paternal disfavoritism was more detrimental than maternal disfavoritism, but only for men. Maternal disfavoritism was more detrimental for women than men. DISCUSSION: These findings shed light on the universality of the long-reaching detrimental effect of perceptions of parental disfavoritism across cultures as well as the unique gendered patterns in China shaped by patriarchy. Findings suggest that the implementation of Three-Child Policy in China should be accompanied with parental education programs involving fathers on equal treatment of children.

Intergenerational Transmission of Relationship Quality in Later-Life Families.

Objective: This article examines the transmission of older women's relationship quality with their mothers and fathers to their relationship quality with their own adult children in midlife. We also investigate how the transmission is moderated by the dimension of relationship quality (closeness vs. strain) and the gender of both the older women's parents and their adult children. Background: Prior research has primarily examined parents' transmission of relationship quality to young children with little attention to whether and when this pattern occurs in later-life families. Method: We conducted multilevel analyses using data collected from 249 older women and 643 of their adult children as part of the Within-Family Differences Study-I. Results: We found evidence for transmission of older women's reported closeness and tension with their mothers and fathers to their reported closeness and tension with their adult children. Adult children's reports also revealed that older women's closeness with their own mothers was transmitted to their adult children's reported closeness with the older women themselves. Mother-child closeness was transmitted more strongly than mother-child tension, and mother-child closeness was transmitted more strongly to daughters than sons, based on adult children's reports. Conclusion: This study demonstrates the continuity of intergenerational influence in later-life families and highlights the essential roles that selective social learning and social structural position (i.e., gender) play in conditioning the socialization process.

What Motivates Physicians to Address Caregiver Needs? The Role of Experiential Similarity.

Despite the significant stress of family caregiving, caregivers' needs and risks are often overlooked in healthcare settings. This study examined the factors associated with primary care physicians' perceived responsibility to identify and address caregiver needs and risks. Using a national random sample of U.S. primary care physicians (N = 106), multivariable logistic regression analyses were conducted to examine associations of physicians' perceived responsibility to assess caregivers' needs with experiential similarity (personal experience with caregiving), structural similarity (being older and female), and secondary exposure variables (time seeing older adults in the outpatient setting). Most (76.5%) physicians felt responsible for identifying caregivers' needs and risks. In multivariable models, physicians who had personal experience with caregiving were four times more likely than those without it to feel responsible for identifying caregivers' needs and risks and assessing caregivers' mental health concerns. Thus, physicians may benefit from educational interventions that immerse them in caregivers' lived experiences.

Adult Children's Education and Mothers' Psychological Well-Being: Do Adult Children's Problems Mediate This Relationship?

OBJECTIVES: A growing body of literature documents a positive association between adult children's education and older parents' health, and existing studies have identified social support, social influence, and material transfers as factors linking adult children's education and various dimensions of older parents' health. The present study joins this literature by assessing adult children's problems as mechanisms that may underlie disparities in psychological well-being between mothers whose adult children have completed higher and lower levels of education. METHODS: Using 2 waves of longitudinal data collected in 2001-2003 and 2008-2011 from 400 mothers aged 73-85 years at the second wave as part of the Within-Family Differences Study, we examine the role of adult children's problems in mediating the association between adult children's education and mothers' depressive symptoms. RESULTS: Mothers with children who completed post-high school education reported fewer depressive symptoms than mothers whose children all completed high school or less. We found evidence that this relationship was mediated by the proportion of adult children who have experienced physical and emotional problems in the last 5 years. DISCUSSION: This study underscores the importance of considering how resources and risks that affect well-being accumulate both across the life course and across generations. Providing education opportunities to younger generations and enhancing programs that address challenges that low-attaining children may face have the potential to help minimize socioeconomic disparities in psychological well-being among older adults.

How Do Own and Siblings' Genders Shape Caregivers' Risk of Perceiving Care-Related Criticism From Siblings?

OBJECTIVES: Caring for a parent takes a greater psychological toll on daughters than sons. To minimize the psychological burden of parent care, it is important to understand what contributes to this gender disparity. Inspired by the caregiver stress process model and gender-as-relational perspective, we investigate how caregivers' gender, and the genders of their siblings, shape their risk of perceiving care-related criticism from siblings, a secondary stressor of caregiving with negative implications for psychological well-being. METHODS: Using data from 408 adult child caregivers nested within 231 families collected as part of the Within-Family Differences Study, we employ multilevel modeling to examine how caregivers' gender, as well as the gender composition of their sibship, interact to shape caregivers' probability of perceiving criticism from siblings regarding the care that they provide their mother. Qualitative data from the same caregivers are then analyzed to illuminate processes underlying these statistical associations. RESULTS: Quantitative analyses reveal that daughters in predominantly-son sibships have a lower risk of perceiving care-related criticism than daughters in sibships with higher proportions of daughters. Qualitative analyses elucidate these findings. Daughters in predominantly-son sibships report that their siblings defer to them regarding their mother's care. Conversely, daughters in higher proportion-daughter sibships perceive care-related criticism because they and their sibling(s) hold conflicting views regarding care, and there is less consensus regarding who best understands their mother's care needs and preferences. DISCUSSION: Findings demonstrate how characteristics of caregivers and their sibships interact to affect caregivers' risk of perceiving criticism regarding their care to their mothers.

How Widowhood and Gender Shape the Impact of Maternal Favoritism on Adult Children's Psychological Well-Being.

OBJECTIVES: Our goal was to extend research on within-family differences in mother-child relations in later life by focusing on 2 social structural characteristics of mothers and offspring that may play important roles in shaping the impact of maternal favoritism on adult children's depressive symptoms-mother's marital status and child's gender. METHODS: Mixed-methods data were collected as part of the Within-Family Differences Study from 641 adult children nested within 273 families in which: (a) there were at least 2 living adult siblings, and (b) mothers were married or widowed. RESULTS: Multilevel analyses indicated that perceiving oneself as the child to whom one's mother was most emotionally close was a strong predictor of higher depressive symptoms among daughters of widowed mothers; in contrast, perceptions of favoritism did not predict depressive symptoms among sons of either widowed or married mothers, or daughters of married mothers. Qualitative analyses revealed that daughters, but not sons, of widowed mothers tended to attribute their greater closeness with their mothers to their roles as their mothers' "emotional caregivers," particularly solo caregivers, during times when mothers faced negative life events that neither they nor their children could control or ameliorate. DISCUSSION: The quantitative and qualitative findings we present underscore how social structural positions-in this case, mother's marital status and child's gender-combine with social psychological processes to shape how parent-child relations affect children's well-being in adulthood.

Prodigal Children: Why Older Mothers Favor Their Once-Deviant Adult Children.

OBJECTIVES: Past research suggests that adult children who reform their deviant behaviors (i.e., problems with drugs/alcohol or the law) are more likely to become favored by their mothers, yet the reasons underlying this phenomenon are unclear. This study employs a longitudinal, qualitative approach to explore why adult children's behavioral reforms shape changes in maternal favoritism. METHOD: Analyses are based on qualitative interview data collected at 2 points 7 years apart from older mothers regarding their adult children in 20 families. Each of these families had a "prodigal child"-a child for whom desistance from deviant behaviors between the 2 waves was accompanied by newfound maternal favoritism. RESULTS: Findings revealed 2 conditions under which mothers came to favor reformed deviants over their siblings. First, this occurred when adult children's behavioral reformations were accompanied by mothers' perceptions of these children as having grown more family-oriented. Second, this occurred when mothers came to see reformed deviants as exhibiting a stronger need and appreciation for maternal support, relative to their siblings. DISCUSSION: Mothers' perceptions of children's behavioral reformations as being accompanied by greater dedication to family or reflecting a need for their mothers' support offer 2 explanations for why previously deviant adult children may become mothers' favored offspring. These findings contribute to a growing body of scholarship on the complexity of intergenerational relations by shedding new light on changing patterns of favoritism in families with a history of parental disappointment, conflict, and strain.

Mothers' Functional Limitations and Relationship Quality With Adult Children: Exploring the Moderating Roles of Race and Gender.

Theory and research on intergenerational relations emphasize the salient role that mothers and their adult children play in one another's lives. However, little is known about how mothers' health may shape mother-child relationship quality in later-life. We utilized data from the Within Family Differences Study to explore how mothers' functional limitations affect multiple dimensions of mother-child relationship quality, as reported by mothers and their offspring, with particular emphasis on whether race, child's gender, or generational position moderated these associations. Although mothers' reports of relationship quality were not predicted by their functional limitations, adult children reported higher ambivalence when they perceived their mothers had limitations. Further, adult children in White families reported higher ambivalence when mothers had limitations than did those in Black families. This study highlights the importance of considering the roles of structural factors in shaping the conditions under which health limitations affect mother-child ties.

Patterns and Processes of Intergenerational Estrangement: A Qualitative Study of Mother-Adult Child Relationships Across Time.

Drawing from the life course perspective, we explored patterns of estrangement between mothers and their adult children across time, and the processes through which these ties remained estranged, or moved in or out of estrangement. We used a prospective design in which data were collected in face-to-face semi-structured interviews with 61 older mothers about their relationships with their 274 adult children at two time points 7 years apart. We began by examining the patterns of stability and change in intergenerational estrangement and identified movement in and out of estrangement across time. Qualitative analyses of the processes underlying estrangement revealed that movement in and out of estrangement reflected nuanced changes in contact and closeness over time rather than abrupt changes resulting from recent transitions in either mothers' or children's lives. Taken together, these findings illustrate the complexity of patterns and processes of intergenerational estrangement in later-life families.

Maternal Differential Treatment and Psychological Well-Being: The Mediating Role of Marital Tension and Sibling Tension?

OBJECTIVES: Past research used equity theory and social comparison theory to explain the direct effect of maternal differential treatment (MDT) on psychological well-being. However, this focus on psychological pathways ignores possible social pathways, such as indirect effects of MDT on well-being through disrupting other family relationships. This study uses stress proliferation theory to argue that MDT, as a primary stressor in mother-child relationships, can produce secondary stressors in other family relationships (e.g., sibling tension and marital tension), which in turn leads to lower psychological well-being. METHODS: To investigate this mechanism, we conducted multilevel mediation analysis using data collected from 720 adult children nested within 308 families, as part of the Within-Family Differences Study. RESULTS: We found that sibling tension mediates the association between adult children's perceptions of maternal disfavoritism and their psychological well-being-a process we call the stress proliferation of maternal disfavoritism. In contrast, adult children's perceptions of maternal favoritism cannot trigger this stress proliferation process of producing marital tension nor sibling tension. DISCUSSION: The evaluation of the stress proliferation process of maternal favoritism and disfavoritism can help us to understand the difference in effects across various dimensions of MDT. This study contributes to the literature on social relationships as social determinants of health by investigating how intergenerational relationships are connected to other family relationships to affect family members' health.

Multigenerational social support in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Research documents high levels of instrumental, financial, and expressive support exchanges within multigenerational families in the 21st century. The COVID-19 pandemic poses unique challenges to support exchanges between the generations; however, the pandemic may provide opportunities for greater solidarity within families. In this review, we draw from theoretical perspectives that have been used to study family relationships to understand the implications of the pandemic for multigenerational families: the life course perspective, the intergenerational solidarity model, and rational choice/social exchange theory. We review literature on multigenerational relationships in the United States and discuss how established social support patterns and processes may be altered by the COVID-19 pandemic. We reflect on how the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on multigenerational relationships may vary by gender, race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. Finally, we provide directions for future researchers to pursue in order to understand the lasting impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on multigenerational ties.

Roles of egos' and siblings' perceptions of maternal favoritism in adult children's depressive symptoms: A within-family network approach.

It is well documented that intergenerational ties play important roles in adults' well-being. However, most studies focus on the impact of individuals' own perceptions of their ties without considering whether family members' assessments of these ties affect well-being. We address this question using data from 296 adult children nested within 95 later-life families in which all offspring were interviewed. Applying a mixed-method within-family approach, we explored whether the effect of perceived maternal favoritism on depressive symptoms was increased when siblings shared ego's perceptions. Multilevel regression analyses revealed that ego's own perceptions predicted depressive symptoms, but only among daughters. Siblings' perceptions that egos were most close to mothers did not affect the well-being of daughters or sons. Qualitative analyses suggested that differential effects of perceived favoritism by gender reflected differences in the meaning sons and daughters associated with being favored children. Favored daughters were more likely than favored sons to report that they were emotional caregivers to their mothers; this pattern was especially strong when siblings reinforced egos' perceptions of being "best suited" for this role. These findings emphasize the salience of egos' own perceptions, relative to those of family network members, in shaping role embracement and psychological well-being, especially among women.

Older mother's health and adult children's education: Conceptualization of adult children's education and mother-child relationships.

This study joins and extends an emerging body of work examining the association between adult children's education and their parents' health by (1) providing a conceptual treatment of adult children's education, (2) examining the link between adult children's education and older mothers' physical and mental health, and (3) investigating whether mother-child relationships moderate the association between children's education and mothers' health. Data on 541 older mothers in the U.S. who reported on all of their adult children collected as part of the Within-Family Differences Study. Results indicate the best performing measure of adult children's education, the proportion with a college degree or higher, reflects a cumulative, credential-based approach. In addition, the proportion of adult children with a college degree or higher maintains a negative association with mother's depressive symptoms and activity limitations net of mother's own education as well as a number of sociodemographic factors and adult children's measures. There was no evidence that various aspects of mother-child relationships (geographic proximity, frequency of contact, and quality of relationships) moderated these negative associations.

Accuracy of Adult Children's Perceptions of Mothers' Caregiver Preferences.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Most older mothers have strong preferences regarding which offspring will serve as their future caregivers, and violation of these preferences has been found to have consequences for mothers' psychological well-being. However, no study has examined the accuracy of adult children's perceptions of their mothers' caregiver preferences. In this article, we compare mothers' stated preferences for particular caregivers with their adult children's perceptions of their mothers' preferences. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: Data were collected from 675 adult children and their mothers nested within 285 families as part of the Within-Family Differences Study. RESULTS: Only 44.6% of adult children accurately reported their mothers' preferences for particular offspring as caregivers. Consistent with our hypotheses, accuracy was higher when mothers and children shared values regarding filial piety, and lower when children were parents, had poor health, and lived further away. Surprisingly, primary caregivers were substantially less likely to accurately report mothers' caregiver preferences than were noncaregivers. This counterintuitive pattern can be explained by the finding that most mothers were cared for by children whom they did not prefer and may have therefore been reluctant to share their preferences with those caregivers. DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS: Given the negative psychological consequences for mothers whose caregiver preferences are violated, the high level of inaccuracy found among adult children has important implications when mothers face serious health events. These findings underscore the need for intervention efforts to encourage practitioners and clinicians to collect information directly from mothers regarding preferences for particular offspring as caregivers.

Adult Children's Perceptions of Maternal Favoritism During Caregiving: Comparisons Between Turkey and the United States.

This study explores cross-cultural variations in adult children's perceptions of maternal favoritism during caregiving in Turkey and the United States. Qualitative analysis of interview data from two siblings in each of 14 Turkish and 14 American families revealed differences in adult children's perceptions of and explanations for maternal favoritism. Most Turkish children perceived that their mothers favored sons because of higher filial expectations from sons. Conversely, most American children perceived that their mothers favored daughters and explained mothers' preferences as based on socioemotional factors. Furthermore, perceptions of maternal favoritism had detrimental consequences for sibling relationships in both contexts but differently. Turkish daughters reported conflicts over their favored brothers' lack of cooperation. American daughters perceived themselves as favored and felt obligated to undertake most of the caregiving burden which fueled sibling conflict. Taken together, this study highlights the importance of cultural context for understanding the within-family differences in sibling relationships during caregiving.