This project seeks to improve models for explaining the living arrangements of the elderly, comparing immigrant origin groups to native whites and blacks between 1850 and 2000. It explores the poles of interdependence and autonomy across U.S. history, using a broad array of ethnic/racial groups. The research is particularly significant given the growing importance of the ethnic elderly in the aged population of the U.S. and the health and social implications of household arrangements. By broadening the range of ethnicities and time periods, this project will bring greater certainty to standard models that contrast ethnocultural, economic, and demographic effects on the living arrangements of elderly men and women. The research goes beyond current models by evaluating period effects and the overarching impact of the immigration experience itself. Recent theoretical debate, focused on the competing claims of familism and rational choice models, concentrates almost exclusively on the current era and on contemporary immigrant groups. It assumes that autonomy is the core norm of white native elderly. The project will add six new data sets to a currently used series, encompassing 150 years and three major immigration eras, breaking with a conventional comparison between the most recent and the 1890-1920 eras. It will add five ethnic groups, bringing the total to thirteen, including native whites and blacks. Gender differentiated analyses begin by showing long-term trends in the lived experience of the elderly. Multivariate logistic regressions will be used in each census year to assess the relative effect and interaction of dominant variables, testing familism, assimilation, and segmented assimilation theory. The multivariate models will be compared across time to assess period effects. The final step in the research will lead to a comparative analysis of the families of the elderly and children, relying on the project work and previous research on children. The research provides a strong foundation for conclusions about culture, economics and other factors on family formation in the United States and will make innovative contributions to theory about living arrangements. The project's specific aims are to a) extend the temporal range of scholarly research and to broaden the set of groups compared; b) model the living arrangements of female and male elderly across the entire series, testing familism, rational choice, demographic, and period factors; c) prepare four articles from the results, including a summary article using outcomes for both children and the elderly.
| Merchant, Emily R; Gratton, Brian; Gutmann, Myron (2012) A Sudden Transition: Household Changes for Middle Aged U.S. Women in the Twentieth Century. Popul Res Policy Rev 31:703-726 |
