Introduction

This chapter focuses on care obligations towards family members. The relevance of examining this normative aspect of solidarity is the interdependence between feelings of obligation and actual support exchange. Earlier research has shown that a sense of duty towards one's family can have a predictive value for the informal care actually exchanged. Elderly American parents, for example, who felt strongly that family should help one another, gave their children more practical and financial help than parents who felt less strongly about this (Lee et al., 1994). Other studies have shown that the more strongly elderly parents and/or their adult children subscribed to the view that children and parents should support one another, the more practical support they received (Broese van Groenou, 2005; Klein Ikkink et al., 1999; Stein et al., 1998). Conversely, actual support exchange has also been found to influence feelings of obligation. According to Festinger's (1957) cognitive dissonance theory, situations in which behaviour conflicts with personal values (cognitive dissonance) are considered undesirable. In order to reduce dissonance, giving or receiving support is retrospectively attributed to a strong sense of duty, and the absence of support exchange could lead to the adjustment of personal values.

In the self-completion questionnaire used in SHARE, a number of items on two types of care obligations were posed: an obligation to care for the elderly and an obligation to care for children and grandchildren. With regard to the first type of obligation, respondents were asked who should bear the responsibility for three aspects of care for the elderly: (1) help with household chores for older persons who are in need such as help with cleaning and washing; (2) personal care for older persons who are in need such as nursing or help with bathing or dressing; and (3) financial support for older persons who are in need. Respondents could choose any of the following answer categories: totally the government, mainly the government, totally the family, mainly the family, both equally.

Appendix Measurement of the independent variables

Background

In the second part of the last century, major demographic and socioeconomic transformations have been taking place in Europe. The most notable demographic change is the ageing of Europe's populations, as a result of the transition from relatively high to low fertility and increased life expectancy. Other important demographic changes are: postponement of leaving the parental home (especially in southern Europe), delayed partnership/marriage and parenthood, increases in childlessness (projected in parts of Europe) and increases in union dissolution (e.g. Aassve et al., 2002; Allan et al., 2001; Billari et al., 2001; Hakim, 2000; Kiernan, 2004; Kuijsten, 1999; Liefbroer, 2005). On the socioeconomic front, the most notable changes are: the expansion of education, the development, expansion and adaptation of welfare systems (including social protection, pension and early retirement schemes, provision of state care support), and the massive influx of women into the paid labour force. Along these transformations, Europe faced broader societal changes, like the processes of individualisation and secularisation, increasing geographic mobility, women's emancipation, and changing care preferences (Lesthaeghe & Surkyn, 1988; Van de Kaa, 1987).

These transformations have resulted in irreversible changes in household size and composition (Fokkema & Liefbroer, 2007; Hall, 1986; Keilman, 1987, 2005; Kuijsten, 1995). There is a trend throughout much of Europe towards smaller households. One-person younger households are on the rise: besides increases in union dissolution, an increasing number of young adults establish premarital residences independent of their parents as the final step in their transition to adulthood. The proportion of one-person households among the elderly has increased as well, due to a combination of rising prosperity, increased life expectancy, growing popularity to live independently as long as possible, and increased state-provided elderly care and support. The decrease in the number of children per family and smaller age gaps between each child have led to a narrowing of the time frame during which one is responsible for dependent children, although the expansion of education and postponement of leaving the parental home postpone the ‘empty nest stage’. Furthermore, because of the changing roles of women and men in society, a trend is noticeable regarding the organisation of tasks within the household. While for a long time it was common that the husband was the only or main breadwinner and the wife was responsible for child care and housework, the division of tasks is currently less clear.

Introduction

Families in Europe have changed considerably in recent decades, in both structural and cultural terms. The most important changes in family structure are the verticalisation and horizontal narrowing of families (Bengtson, 2001; Bengtson et al., 1990; Farkas & Hogan, 1995; Harper, 2005; Hogan et al., 1993; Seltzer et al., 2005): as life expectancy is rising, families today span a larger number of generations, but due to the declining family size, each successive generation consists of fewer people. We also see that family and marital ties have become weaker. Marriage has lost ground to other living arrangements, divorce is on the rise and, due to growing geographic mobility, family members are living further apart from each other (Allan et al., 2001; Kiernan, 2004). At the same time, caring duties have come under increasing pressure as a result of the emancipation of women, in particular their increased enrolment in education and labour force participation (Blossfeld, 1995; Blossfeld & Huinink, 1991; Hakim, 2000). In cultural terms there has been a shift from instrumental orientation towards the family to a more individualistic and affective orientation and a greater emphasis on individual needs and personal happiness (Hareven, 1995).

According to some, these changes are a threat to family solidarity (Popenoe, 1993; Wolfe, 1989). They say that the degree to which parents and children are prepared to support and care for each other is decreasing. In this respect, the welfare state has not been of any help. The need for children to care for their parents has declined as formal care for the elderly has been extended (Lingsom, 1997; Künemund & Rein, 1999). Benefits such as state and other pensions and social security have made parents and children less dependent on each other in economic terms.

Others believe that family solidarity has not so much weakened, but has changed in character. Smaller families and the disappearance of distance-creating parental authority have paved the way for more intensive and more personal contact between parents and their children. They say that formal care facilities for older adults and caring for one's family are complementary: as part of the caring responsibilities are taken off their shoulders, informal carers are relieved somewhat of this heavy burden and are able to keep up these duties for a longer period of time (Attias-Donfut et al., 2005a; Chappell & Blandford, 1991; Daatland & Herlofson, 2001).

Introduction

Previous chapters subsequently focused on geographical proximity, frequency of contact, family care obligations and support exchange, representing the structural, association, normative and functional solidarity in the Bengtson and Roberts (1991) model, between parents and their adult children. The focus was on describing and explaining the current variations in each specific domain of intergenerational solidarity within and across European countries. In this chapter, we will contrast the four solidarity domains simultaneously, in an aim to find different late-life family types. In other words, we will examine the diversity in adult children-parent relationships on the basis of different domains of intergenerational solidarity. In this way, we gain a better understanding of the current complexities in the relationships ageing parents have with their adult children. To our knowledge, this is the first time that multiple domains are considered simultaneously in more than one country. The challenging research question is whether different types of late-life families can be empirically distinguished, and if so, what their incidence is, and whether their distribution varies across and within European societies.

Latent Class Analysis (LCA) was applied to construct the typology of late-life families. In LCA one assumes probabilistic rather than deterministic relationships between the latent construct (the concept of interest, in this case solidarity between parents and their adult children) and manifest indicators (the measures actually used) (Hagenaars & Halman, 1989; Yamaguchi, 2000). A basic assumption of LCA is conditional dependence, which means that associations between manifest indicators exist only insofar they measure the same latent construct. LCA has the advantage that the classes of the latent construct are discrete and need not be ordered along a continuum (Clogg, 1995).

The input for LCA is a cross-classification table of the scores for each variable in the analysis. In order to have a manageable number of cells in the data matrix, it is common to use dichotomous variables (cf. Hogan et al., 1993; Silverstein & Bengtson, 1997; Van Gaalen & Dykstra, 2006). The dichotomous variables (0 = no, 1 = yes) we constructed with regard to geographical proximity and the frequency of contact were whether the parent had at least one child living within a 5-kilometre radius and whether the parent had more than weekly contact with one or more children, respectively.

Introduction

The relevance of examining geographical proximity between parents and their adult children is twofold: it is an important indicator of intergenerational relationships and one of the main preconditions for other dimensions of solidarity. Living nearby facilitates contact and support exchange. This applies in particular to face-to-face contact and practical help (De Jong Gierveld & Fokkema, 1998; Hank, 2007; Joseph & Hallman, 1998; Lawton et al., 1994a; Litwak & Kulis, 1987; Tomassini et al., 2003).

In this chapter we will address the variation in geographical proximity between parents and their adult children across European countries and individuals. SHARE respondents were asked about the geographical distance of all children (up to 17). The answer categories were: (1) in the same household, (2) in the same building, (3) less than 1 kilometre away (4) between 1 and 5 kilometres away, (5) between 5 and 25 kilometres away, (6) between 25 and 100 kilometres away, (7) between 100 and 500 kilometres away, (8) more than 500 kilometres away, and (9) more than 500 kilometres away in another country. As coresidence can be seen as a form of solidarity, we will first present betweencountry differences for all older parents, including those with coresident children (figure 2.1). Next, we will focus on those who only have non-coresident children. Besides differences between countries, descriptive statistics will be given of the association between several parent characteristics and two indicators of geographical proximity: the average number of children living within five kilometres and the percentage of parents with at least one child within five kilometres (table 2.2 and table 2.1). In addition, we will present the results of the logistic regression analysis on geographical proximity, where having at least one adult child within five kilometres (1 = yes; 0 = no) will be the dependent variable (table 2.3). These regression results allow us to evaluate the extent to which the between-country differences and the associations with the personal characteristics remain significant after controlling for the influence of the other determinants in the model.

Multi-generation household: a southern European phenomenon

The most striking finding presented in figure 2.1 is that southern European older adults were far more likely to form part of a multi-generation household than their peers in central and northern Europe.

Introduction

Contact frequency between parents and their adult children is the central issue of this chapter. Like geographical proximity, regular contact is needed to exchange support. The more contact there is, the easier it is to give and receive support and to identify whether support is needed. Contact frequency is sometimes seen as a form of support in itself as it meets a social need. It is also an indirect indicator of a range of types of support that are difficult to measure (Kalmijn & Dykstra, 2006). It is worth noting that frequent contact may also be associated with negative interactions. There is a growing awareness, however, that high levels of both contact and conflict (ambivalence) do not automatically imply that the parent-child relationship is of low quality (Van Gaalen, 2007).

In the SHARE questionnaire, respondents were asked about the frequency of contact with at most four children: ‘During the past 12 months, how often did you (or your husband/wife/partner) have contact with [child name], either personally, by phone or mail?’. The answer categories were: (1) daily, (2) several times a week, (3) about once a week, (4) about every two weeks, (5) about once a month, (6) less than once a month, and (7) never. Assuming that parents have daily contact with coresident children, the contact question is asked for non-coresident children.

First, country differences will be presented with regard to contact frequency on its own and in relation to conflict (figure 3.1, figure 3.2 and figure 3.3) and the average number of children with whom parents were in contact once a week, several times a week or daily (figure 3.2). Our focus will then shift to the bivariate relationship between parent-child contact on the one hand and several personal characteristics on the other hand, with special attention to the parents’ and children's gender, family size, and parental divorce (table 3.1, table 3.2, table 3.3 and table 3.4). For these descriptive analyses, different indicators of contact frequency at the level of the parent were considered, including frequency of contact with the most contacted child, the percentage of parents having daily contact or more than weekly contact, the percentage of parents having no contact with the children, the total number of contacts across all children, the variation in contact frequency between children and the mean annual number of contacts per child.

Introduction

Support exchange is the last dimension of solidarity considered in this study. The literature pays particular attention to two issues. The first is the impact of the expansion of welfare state provisions, such as social security, pension, childcare arrangements and extramural and intramural eldercare services, on support exchange among family members. There is broad consensus that the expansion of the welfare state, together with social and cultural changes, have relieved the family of the primary and life-long responsibility of caring for its members in economic and practical terms (so-called de-familisation; Lister, 1994). There is less consensus, however, whether family support is being substituted by welfare state provisions or whether they are complementary, although empirical studies more often confirm the latter (Arber & Attias-Donfut, 2000; Chappell & Blandford, 1991; Daatland & Herlofson, 2001; Knijn et al., 2005; Rainwater et al., 1986). The second issue addressed in the literature concerns the main reasons why people provide support: do family members help each other because of ‘prescribed altruism’ and gendered norms and values (Finch, 1989; Land & Rose, 1985), or is reciprocity (norms and practices of giving and taking) the driving factor? And if reciprocity is what drives people to provide support, do family members reciprocate each other's support immediately or is some recompense expected in the long run (Gouldner, 1960; Komter et al., 2000)?

SHARE respondents were asked whether they had given support to, and whether they and their partner, if any, had received support from people outside their own household in the past 12 months, and if so, what kind of support this had been (personal care, practical household help and/or help with paperwork), to/by whom (answering categories of specific persons, including non-coresident children) and how often (almost daily, almost every week, almost every month or less often). They were also asked whether they or their partner had given or received 250 euros or more to/from people inside or outside their own household in the past 12 months, and if so, to/from whom (answer categories of specific persons, including children), why (list of specific reasons) and how much. Finally, respondents with one or more grandchildren were asked whether and if so, how often (almost daily, almost every week, almost every month or less often), they looked after them.