18 Sep 2007 07:00 AM
A Child's Life Experiences, Including Divorce, Affect The Care They Give To Aging Parents
For better or worse, baby boomers approach retirement with more complex marital histories than previous generations. Temple University researcher Adam Davey, Ph.D. has found the impact of these events -- divorces, widowhood, and remarriage -- can predict if a child will provide more involved care in the future.
A divorce may have happened over 30 years ago, but the changes it caused can have a long lasting effect for the child into adulthood, Davey said. The findings appear in the September issue of Advances in Life Course Research.
More specifically, divorce predicted an adult child would be less of involved with day-to-day assistance later in life for the aging parent. These activities include the child helping the parent maintain chores in the home.
"It's not the divorce itself that affects the quality of the parent-child relationship, but it's what happens afterwards such as geographical separation," said Davey, a gerontologist who studies trends in the baby boomer generation and other aging issues.
Davey analyzed data from 2,087…
A divorce may have happened over 30 years ago, but the changes it caused can have a long lasting effect for the child into adulthood, Davey said. The findings appear in the September issue of Advances in Life Course Research.
More specifically, divorce predicted an adult child would be less of involved with day-to-day assistance later in life for the aging parent. These activities include the child helping the parent maintain chores in the home.
"It's not the divorce itself that affects the quality of the parent-child relationship, but it's what happens afterwards such as geographical separation," said Davey, a gerontologist who studies trends in the baby boomer generation and other aging issues.
Davey analyzed data from 2,087…
