Till Marriage Do Us Part: Adult Children’s Relationships With Their Parents

Although some emphasize the integrative character of marriage, others argue that marriage undermines relations with extended kin, including aging parents. Utilizing NSFH data (N= 6,108), we find that married women and men have less intense intergenerational ties than the never married and the divorced: The married are less likely to live with parents, stay in touch, and give or receive emotional, financial, and practical help. These differences hold even when we control for structural characteristics, including time demands, needs and resources, and demographic and extended family characteristics. We conclude that marriage is a greedy institution for both women and men. Given the inadequacy of structural explanations, we suggest that cultural explanations for this greediness should be explored.

[1]  Barbara J. Risman,et al.  Gender Vertigo: American Families in Transition , 1998 .

[2]  J. Fischer.  Marital status and career stage influences on social networks of young adults. , 1989 .

[3]  Jerry A. Jacobs,et al.  The Time Divide , 2005 .

[4]  Robert D. Putnam,et al.  Bowling alone: the collapse and revival of American community , 2000, CSCW '00.

[5]  M. E. Jackson,et al.  The impact of female caregivers' employment status on patterns of formal and informal eldercare. , 1998, The Gerontologist.

[6]  N. Sarkisian,et al.  Kin Support among Blacks and Whites: Race and Family Organization , 2004 .

[7]  L. Smith-Lovin,et al.  Gender, children, and social contact : The effects of childrearing for men and women , 1997 .

[8]  Stephanie Coontz,et al.  Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage , 2005 .

[9]  S. Nock.  A Comparison of Marriages and Cohabiting Relationships , 1995 .

[10]  P. Rossi,et al.  Of Human Bonding , 2018 .

[11]  L. White,et al.  The Retreat from Marriage: Its Effect on Unmarried Children's Exchange with Parents. , 1995 .

[12]  L. White,et al.  Strong Support but Uneasy Relationships: Coresidence and Adult Children's Relationships with Their Parents , 1997 .

[13]  Naomi Gerstel,et al.  Marriage: The Good, the Bad, and the Greedy , 2006 .

[14]  J. Goodwin.  The Libidinal Constitution of a High-Risk Social Movement: Affectual Ties and Solidarity in the Huk Rebellion, 1946 to 1954 , 1997 .

[15]  N. Gerstel,et al.  Connections and Constraints: The Effects of Children on Caregiving , 2001 .

[16]  Vern L. Bengtson,et al.  Factors That Predispose Middle-Aged Sons and Daughters to Provide Social Support to Older Parents. , 1995 .

[17]  L. Waite,et al.  Keeping in Touch: How Women in Mid-life Allocate Social Contacts among Kith and Kin , 1992 .

[18]  D. Eggebeen.  Cohabitation and Exchanges of Support , 2005 .

[19]  Leslie B. Hammer,et al.  Redressing Inequity in Parent Care Among Siblings , 2003 .

[20]  M. P. Johnson,et al.  Couple involvement and network structure: A test of the dyadic withdrawal hypothesis. , 1982 .

[21]  K. Pillemer,et al.  Choosing Daughters: Exploring Why Mothers Favor Adult Daughters over Sons , 2006 .

[22]  C. Lévi-Strauss.  The Elementary Structures of Kinship , 1969 .

[23]  P. Slater,et al.  On Social Regression , 1963 .

[24]  Janet Saltzman Chafetz,et al.  Deceptive Distinctions: Sex, Gender, and the Social Order.By Cynthia Fuchs Epstein. Yale University Press and Russell Sage Foundation. 300 pp. $25.00 , 1989 .

[25]  Vern L. Bengtson,et al.  Intergenerational Solidarity and the Structure of Adult Child‐Parent Relationships in American Families , 1997, American Journal of Sociology.

[26]  Yean-Ju Lee,et al.  Intergenerational financial support among Whites, African Americans, and Latinos , 1998 .

[27]  N. Sarkisian,et al.  Explaining the Gender Gap in Help to Parents: The Importance of Employment , 2004 .

[28]  V. Bengtson.  Beyond the Nuclear Family: The Increasing Importance of Multigenerational Bonds , 2001 .

[29]  M. Silverstein,et al.  Affection, social contact, and geographic distance between adult children and their parents , 1994 .

[30]  J. Mcmullin,et al.  Sociological Ambivalence and Family Ties: A Critical Perspective , 2002 .

[31]  Sanjiv Gupta.  The Effects of Transitions in Marital Status on Men's Performance of Housework , 1999 .

[32]  Clifford C. Clogg,et al.  The Structure of Intergenerational Exchanges in American Families , 1993, American Journal of Sociology.

[33]  Lewis A. Coser,et al.  Greedy Institutions: Patterns of Undivided Commitment , 1974 .

[34]  P. Uhlenberg,et al.  Support from Parents over the Life Course: The Adult Child's Perspective , 1992 .

[35]  C. Epstein,et al.  Deceptive Distinctions: Sex, Gender and the Social Order , 1991 .

[36]  N. Sarkisian.  “Doing Family Ambivalence”: Nuclear and Extended Families in Single Mothers’ Lives , 2006 .

[37]  P. Uhlenberg,et al.  Effects of Life Course Transitions on the Quality of Relationships between Adult Children and Their Parents , 1998 .

[38]  R. Bales,et al.  Family, socialization and interaction process , 1956 .

[39]  William M. Sullivan,et al.  Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life , 1985 .

[40]  Matthew E. Brashears,et al.  Social Isolation in America: Changes in Core Discussion Networks over Two Decades , 2006 .

[41]  S. Laditka,et al.  Adult Children Helping Older Parents , 2001 .

[42]  J. Logan,et al.  Adult Children's Divorce and Intergenerational Relationships. , 1994 .

[43]  N. Sarkisian,et al.  Extended Family Integration among Euro and Mexican Americans: Ethnicity, Gender, and Class. , 2007 .

[44]  M. Barrett,et al.  The Anti-Social Family , 1982 .

[45]  Diane N. Lye,et al.  Adult Child–Parent Relationships , 1996 .

[46]  Micaela di Leonardo,et al.  The Female World of Cards and Holidays: Women, Families, and the Work of Kinship , 1987, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society.

[47]  C. Himes,et al.  Factors Influencing Parental Caregiving by Adult Women , 1996 .

[48]  B. Depaulo,et al.  Singled Out: How Singles Are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After , 2006 .