The proposed research will investigate new questions regarding how relationships between parents and their adult children are imbedded in and influenced by relationships with other adult children. There has been increasing research on these relations in recent years, but most analyses have focused on single parent-child pairs rather than family structure and the entire network of relations. Using multilevel modeling of repeated measurements we will determine how these relations operate within a family context and influence each other. There are three specific aims. First, we will investigate how parents' relationships with multiple adult children relate to each other, assessing the appropriateness of multilevel modeling approaches and whether conceptual models of competition or cultures of familism more accurately represent this cluster of relationships. Second, we will analyze how characteristics of parents and adult children (such as gender, proximity, and family status), and changes in those characteristics (such as widowhood, divorce, childbearing, residential moves, or changes in parents' health), affect not only their own dyadic relations but also indirectly influence relationships of other siblings with their parents. Third, we will examine whether/how these processes may vary by gender and by race/ethnicity of parent and each adult child. We will use three waves of the National Survey of Families and Households to investigate these questions, focusing on the subset of respondents who have two or more adult children. This large, national probability sample of U.S. residents includes information on characteristics of respondents and of each adult child, as well as on respondents' relationship with each child. ? ? ?
| Deane, Glenn; Spitze, Glenna; Ward, Russell A et al. (2016) Close To You? How Parent-Adult Child Contact Is Influenced by Family Patterns. J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci 71:344-57 |
| Ward, Russell; Deane, Glenn; Spitze, Glenna (2014) Life-course changes and parent-adult child contact. Res Aging 36:568-602 |
| Spitze, Glenna; Ward, Russell; Deane, Glenn et al. (2012) CROSS-SIBLING EFFECTS IN PARENT-ADULT CHILD EXCHANGES OF SOCIOEMOTIONAL SUPPORT. Res Aging 34:197-221 |
| Ward, Russell A (2008) Multiple parent-adult child relations and well-being in middle and later life. J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci 63:S239-S247 |
