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Consequences of Parental Divorce for Adult Children’s Support of Their Frail Parents
Author(s) -
Lin IFen
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
journal of marriage and family
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.578
H-Index - 159
eISSN - 1741-3737
pISSN - 0022-2445
DOI - 10.1111/j.1741-3737.2007.00465.x
Subject(s) - remarriage , odds , psychology , health and retirement study , paternal care , developmental psychology , sample (material) , population , demography , gerontology , medicine , logistic regression , pregnancy , chemistry , offspring , chromatography , sociology , biology , genetics , political science , law
Using three waves of data from the Health and Retirement Study, I examined the association of parental divorce and remarriage with the odds that biological, adult children give personal care and financial assistance to their frail parents. The analysis included 5,099 adult children in the mother sample and 4,029 children in the father sample. Results indicate that adult children of divorced parents are just as likely as adult children of widowed parents to give care and money to their mothers, but the former are less likely than the latter to care for their fathers. The findings suggest that divorced fathers are prone to be the population most in need of formal support in old age.