CHAPTER 18
AGING FAMILIES
I. Our Aging Population
The number of older persons in the United States (and all other industrialized nations) is growing remarkably. Not only
has the number of elderly increased, but also their proportion of the total U.S. population is growing.
A. Aging Baby Boomers
Baby boomers are beginning to retire and within the next twenty years, they will comprise a dramatically large elderly
population.
B. Longer Life Expectancy
1. Longer life expectancy has contributed to the aging of our population. Demographers point to two general family-
related consequences of our living longer:
a. Because more generations are alive at once, there are greater opportunities for maintaining ties with kin.
b. On average, Americans spend more years near the end of their lives with chronic health problems.
C. Racial/Ethnic Composition of the Older American Population
As a group, non-Hispanic whites in the United States are older than other racial/ethnic categories.
II. Living Arrangements of Older Americans
A. About one-quarter of U.S. households are made up of people living alone. Many of them are older persons.
B. Gender Differences in Older Americans’ Living Arrangements
1. Due mainly to differences in life expectancy, older men are much more likely to be living with their spouse than
are older women.
2. Older women are significantly more likely than older men to live with persons other than their spouse.
C. Racial/Ethnic Differences in Older Americans’ Living Arrangements
1. African Americans and Hispanics are much more likely than whites to live with persons other than their spouse.
2. Among older Americans without partners, living arrangements depend on a variety of factors:
a. the status of one’s health
b. the availability of others with whom to reside
c. social norms regarding obligations of other family members toward the elderly
d. personal preferences for privacy and independence
e. economics
III. Aging in Today’s Economy
A. Today’s older Americans live on a combination of Social Security benefits, private pensions from employers, the
individual retiree’s savings, and social welfare programs.
1. About 40 percent of the income of people age 65 and older is from Social Security benefits and related federal
programs.
2. Growth in Social Security benefits has resulted in dramatic declines in U.S. poverty rates over the last several
decades.
3. Overall, the improvements in the financial status and the health of older Americans have resulted in a revolution
in lifestyles and living arrangements among the elderly.
B. Older Women’s Finances
1. Older men are considerably better off financially than are older women.
2. Women’s Social Security benefits average about 76 percent of men’s.
III. Marriage Relationships in Later Life
A. Only about 4 percent of women and of men over 65 have never married.
1. Most older married couples place intimacy as central to their lives and describe their unions as happy.
2. Older Americans value and continue to be interested in sex, even into old-old age.
B. The Postparental Period and Retirement
1. Older married couples without children under age 18 constitute an increasing proportion of American households.
2. The postparental period is a time when couples can return their attention to each other and reorganize their
lives; there is potential for high satisfaction.
3. We tend to think of retirement as an abrupt event, but many people retire gradually by steadily reducing their
work hours.
IV. Later-Life Divorce and Widowhood
Although the majority of couples who divorce do so before their retirement years, some couples do divorce in later life.
A. Widowhood and Widowerhood
1. Adjustment to widowhood or widowerhood is an important family transition that often must be faced by married
couples in later life.
2. Typically, widowhood and widowerhood begin with bereavement.
Bereavement manifests itself in physical, emotional, and intellectual symptoms.
V. Older Parents, Adult Children, and Grandchildren
More often than spousal relationships, those between parents and their children last a lifetime.
A. Older Parents and Adult Children
1. Adults’ relationships with their parents can be classified in five different ways:
a. tight-knit
b. sociable
c. obligatory
d. intimate but distant
e. detached
2. Parent-adult child relations vary depending on how family members combine or do not combine. Research
shows that there is no one typical model for parent-adult child relationships.
3. Daughters are more likely than sons to have close relationships with their parents, especially with their mothers.
B. Grandparenthood
1. Grandparenting and great-grandparenting became increasingly important to families throughout the twentieth
century.
2. Many grandparents find the role deeply meaningful.
3. Cherlin and Furstenberg identified three general styles of grandparenting:
a. remote
b. companionate
c. involved
4. Divorce affects the grandparent relationship and circumstances are different for the custodial grandparent
versus the noncustodial grandparent.
5. Remarriages create stepgrandparents.
VI. Aging Families and Caregiving
A. In addition to being care recipients, older Americans give to their communities, assisting their adult children and
in many other ways as well.
B. Gerontologists define caregiving as assistance provided to persons who cannot, for whatever reason, perform
the basic activities or instrumental activities of daily living for themselves. The vast majority of eldercare is informal
caregiving.
C. Gerontologists point to two models of family caregiving:
1. the care provider model
2. the care manager model
3. Care receivers may prefer caregivers based on the kind of help needed.
D. Older Americans provide a considerable amount of eldercare to one another
E. Adult Children as Eldercare Providers
Motivated by both filial responsibility and also by affection, adult children often care for their parents.
F. Gender Differences in Providing Eldercare
1. Most caregivers are women.
2. When siblings share in caring for a parent, daughters do more than sons.
3. Many daughter-caregivers have children under age 18 living at home.
G. The Sandwich Generation
The sandwich generation consists of middle-aged (or older) individuals, usually women, who are sandwiched
between the simultaneous responsibilities of caring for their dependent children and aging parents.
G. Eldercare as a Family Process
1. Only 5 percent of all older people living in nursing homes; families continue to provide most care for frail or
disabled elders, except for financial support.
2. Social scientists have noted a caregiving trajectory through which the process of eldercare proceeds.
3. Caregiving parent-child relations might best be characterized by ambivalence.
4. Caregiver Stress
a. Caregiving is stressful and can be financially and emotionally costly.
b. Caregiver stress among Americans results partly from the fact that ours is an individualist, rather than a
collectivist, culture.
c. Elder abuse in families often, although not always, results from caregiver stress.
H. Racial/Ethnic Diversity and Family Eldercare
1. Adult children of all races and ethnicities feel responsible for their aging parents and to their siblings, with whom
they may share eldercare obligations.
2. Usually associated with the African American family, fictive kin are often resources for eldercaregiving help
among Hispanics and some other ethnic minorities as well.
3. Among many immigrant ethnic groups, acculturation affects norms of filial obligation.
VII. The Changing American Family and Eldercare in the Future
A. As America ages, providing eldercare has become a central feature of American family life.
1. Women’s increased participation in the labor force decreases the time that women have available to engage in
eldercare.
2. Families are usually smaller today than in the past, hence the ratio of adult children to elderly parents is declining.
3. Among the elderly today, divorce is a relatively rare experience.
4. A high sense of filial obligation in a family has been positively related to actual caregiving and support.
B. Toward Better Caregiving
1. Family caregiving is important to the whole society and saves millions of dollars annually for the taxpayer.
2. Andrew Cherlin distinguishes between the “public” and the “private” face of families.
3. Unlike other Western democracies, the United States restricts its social insurance programs to elderly persons.
4. Cancian and Oliker have proposed three strategies for moving our society toward better eldercare:
a. provision of government funds that support more care outside the family
b. increase social recognition of caregiving
c. make caregiving more economically rewarding.