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Gendered support to older parents: do welfare states matter?

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An Erratum to this article was published on 01 March 2012

Abstract

The aim of this study is to examine the association of welfare state policies and the gendered organisation of intergenerational support (instrumental help and personal care) to older parents. The study distinguishes between support to older parents provided at least weekly, i.e. time-intensive and often burdening support, and supplemental sporadic support. Three policy instruments were expected to be associated with daughters’ and sons’ support or gender inequality in intergenerational support respectively: (1) professional social services, (2) cash-for-care payments and (3) legal obligations to provide or co-finance care for parents. The analyses based on the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe showed that daughters provided somewhat more sporadic and much more intensive support than sons throughout Europe. While about half of all children who sporadically supported a parent were men, this applied to only one out of four children who provided intensive support. Logistic multilevel models revealed that legal obligations were positively associated with daughters’ likelihood of giving intensive support to parents but did not affect the likelihood of sons doing so. Legal obligations thus stimulate support in a gender-specific way. Both legal obligations and cash-for-care schemes were also accompanied by a more unequal distribution of involvement in intensive support at the expense of women. Social services, in contrast, were linked to a lower involvement of daughters in intensive support. In sum, the results suggest that welfare states can both preserve or reduce gender inequality in intergenerational support depending on specific arrangements.

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Notes

  1. It should be mentioned that welfare state policies are not only shaped by cultural norms but also shape them. For a discussion of the complex issue of the interrelation between welfare states and culture, see for example Pfau-Effinger (2005) and van Oorschot et al. (2008).

  2. Leitner (2003) has classified the Netherlands as an implicitly familialistic country. Due to its relatively generous service provision combined with a cash-for-care scheme (‘Persoongeboden budget’), other authors, however, have categorised it as what Leitner has labelled an optionally familialistic care system (Anttonen and Sipilä 1996; Bettio and Plantenga 2004; Haberkern and Szydlik 2010; Timonen et al. 2006).

  3. Only 0.5% (n = 199) of the respondents live in the same household with a parent. They were only asked whether they provided personal care to that parent regularly during the last year. Detailed information about the amount of time spent on providing care was not recorded. Moreover, these respondents were not asked about other forms of support to their co-resident parent, such as practical help. Due to the sparse information as well as the small number of observations, we restrict the sample to respondents not living in the same household with their parents.

  4. We do not account for geographical proximity, as it is very likely to be a result of different family regimes itself: When family obligations are high and legally reinforced, while the provision of state assistance is low, children are not able to move far from their parents or might even move back in case of frailty and need.

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Acknowledgments

This article uses data from SHARE release 2.3.1, as of 29 July 2010. The SHARE data collection has been primarily funded by the European Commission through the 5th framework programme (project QLK6-CT-2001-00360 in the thematic programme Quality of Life), through the 6th framework programme (projects SHARE-I3, RII-CT- 2006-062193, COMPARE, CIT5-CT-2005-028857, and SHARELIFE, CIT4-CT-2006-028812) and through the 7th framework programme (SHARE-PREP, 211909 and SHARE-LEAP, 227822). Additional funding from the U.S. National Institute on Aging (U01 AG09740-13S2, P01 AG005842, P01 AG08291, P30 AG12815, Y1-AG-4553-01 and OGHA 04-064, IAG BSR06-11, R21 AG025169) as well as from various national sources is gratefully acknowledged (see www.share-project.org/t3/share/index.php for a full list of funding institutions).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Sociology, University of Zurich, Andreasstrasse 15, 8050, Zurich, Switzerland

    Tina Schmid & Klaus Haberkern

  2. Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA), 80799, Munich, Germany

    Martina Brandt

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  1. Tina Schmid
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Correspondence to Tina Schmid.

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Responsible Editor: D.J.H. Deeg.

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Schmid, T., Brandt, M. & Haberkern, K. Gendered support to older parents: do welfare states matter?. Eur J Ageing 9, 39–50 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10433-011-0197-1

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