Widowhood and Well‐being in Europe: The Role of National and Regional Context

Researchers have documented that widows have lower levels of subjective well‐being than married individuals, but we still know little about how the regional and national contexts affect the impact of widowhood on well‐being. Building on social capital theory and using data from 5 rounds of the European Social Survey (N= 119,292 people, 206 regions, 23 countries), the authors tested how marital status composition at the national and regional levels affects the well‐being of widows. Widows fare worse in countries with high proportions of married people and in regions and countries with high proportions of widowed persons. The proportion of married individuals at the regional level does not affect their well‐being. These results are in line with the greedy marriage hypothesis, but varying effects at regional and national levels suggest that the standard explanation for this phenomenon, lack of individual social support, is not valid. This study demonstrates the importance of multiple contextual embeddedness.     

Social Support,Unfulfilled Expectations,and Affective Well‐being on Return to Employment

We conducted a longitudinal study to investigate how social support from the partner is related to mothers' affective well‐being during their return to employment after maternity leave and whether expectations of that support have an additional impact. We differentiated four forms of support and their respective expectation discrepancies: emotional, instrumental, informational, and companionship. Further, we included the impact of meeting specific support expectations. A convenience sample of 288 women filled out questionnaires 2 weeks before reentry and then 1 month and 2 months afterward. Social support was associated with well‐being, with emotional support having the strongest positive impact. Informational and instrumental support either were not related or were negatively related to affective well‐being. Expectations had an additional influence but were inconsistently associated with affect. They became more important over time.     

Positive,Negative, and Ambivalent Interactions With Family and Friends: Associations With Well‐being

Although the relationship between social relationships and mental health is well established, debate continues about the relative importance of specific sources (spouses, children, relatives, friends) as well as of positive and negative interactions. The authors examined the associations of positive, negative, and ambivalent interactions with life satisfaction and depressive symptoms for spouses, children, relatives, and friends, using data from the 2008 Health and Retirement Study (N = 6,418). The findings generally showed positive associations between positive interactions and mental health and negative associations between negative or ambivalent interactions and mental health. These associations were most pronounced for relationships with spouses and children. Gender differences were found in life satisfaction but not in depressive symptoms. These results imply that future research on older adults needs to consider both positive and negative relationship features from diverse sources separately and in combination to disentangle their relative effects and their additive or compensatory potential.     

The Long‐Term Effects of Caregiving on Women's Health and Mortality

Caregivers experience numerous mental and physical health effects from the stress of providing care, but we know little about whether these problems persist in the long term and whether long‐term effects differ across caregiving contexts. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Mature Women, we examined the relationship between caregiving and long‐term patterns of depressive symptoms, functional limitations, and mortality. We also explored the health effects of caregiving in‐home versus out‐of‐home and by caregiver/care‐recipient relationship. Analyses show that in‐home spousal and parental caregiving predict increased depressive symptoms and functional limitations in the long term but are unassociated with mortality, whereas caregiving outside the home is unassociated with later depression and functional limitations but predicts a lower risk of mortality. This study highlights the usefulness of approaching stressful experiences such as caregiving from the life course perspective, viewing them as processes that unfold over time within specific contexts that may carry delayed or cumulative consequences.     

Intergenerational Support and the Emotional Well‐being of Older Jews and Arabs in Israel

This investigation examined the cultural context of intergenerational support among older Jewish and Arab parents living in Israel. The authors hypothesized that support from adult children would be more positively consequential for the psychological well‐being of Arab parents than of Jewish parents. The data derived from 375 adults age 65 and older living in Israel. Psychological well‐being was measured with positive and negative affect subscales of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule. Overall, positive affect was highest when filial expectations for support were congruent with whether or not instrumental support was received. Findings by cultural background revealed that, among older Jews, receiving instrumental support raised positive affect and stronger filial expectations lowered it. Among older Arabs, receiving financial support raised positive affect and receiving instrumental support lowered it. Culture appears to serve as a potent force in determining which types of intergenerational support functions are expected and accepted means of serving the everyday needs of older parents.     

Marital Quality in Remarriage: A Review of Methods and Results

Marital quality in remarriages remains an important construct worthy of scientific inquiry—especially considering the rate at which remarriages end in divorce. The purpose of this critical review was to focus on the factors that affect marital quality within the remarried dyad specifically. Special emphasis was placed on the identification of how well authors defined their construct of interest and applied and used an appropriate operational definition, their procedural method, and their findings.     

Transitions to Caregiving,Gender, and Psychological Well‐Being: A Prospective U.S. National Study

Guided by a life course perspective, this study examined the effects of transitioning into caregiving activity for a child, spouse, parent, other relative, or nonkin associate on nine dimensions of psychological well‐being. Data came from adults ages 19–95, who were noncaregiver primary respondents in the National Survey of Families and Households in 1987–88 and who were followed up longitudinally in 1992–93 (N= 8,286). Results from multivariate regression models confirmed that the transition to caregiving for primary kin (i.e., a child, spouse, or biological parent) was associated with an increase in depressive symptoms. However in selected instances, caregiving was associated with beneficial effects (e.g., women who began to provide nonresidential care to a biological parent reported more purpose in life than noncaregiving women). Evidence regarding gender differences was inconsistent, varying across caregiving role relationship types.     

Household Disorder,Network Ties,and Social Support in Later Life

Family relationships, social interactions, and exchanges of support often revolve around the household context, but scholars rarely consider the social relevance of this physical space. In this article the author considers social causes and consequences of household disorder in the dwellings of older adults. Drawing from research on neighborhood disorder and social connectedness in later life, she describes how network characteristics may contribute to household disorder and how household disorder may weaken relationships and reduce access to support. This is explored empirically by estimating cross‐lagged panel models with data from 2 waves of the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project. The results reveal that household disorder reflects a lack of social support, and it leads to more kin‐centered networks and more strain within family relationships. The author concludes by urging greater attention to how the household context shapes—and is shaped by—the social interactions and processes that occur within it.     

Social Support and the Mental Health of Family Caregivers: Sons and Daughters Caring for Aging Parents in Japan

The prevalence of depressive symptoms among family caregivers has been documented as a serious social problem that could threaten the lives of the elderly and their family caregivers. Social support is considered to be a promising remedy for this problem, although a comprehensive examination of the availability and effectiveness of social support that includes both formal and informal support across multiple dimensions remains limited. In addition, little research has been conducted in Japan on gender differences in stress processes. This study tried to fill those gaps by analyzing recent survey data on sons and daughters who are caring for their elderly parents. The results indicate that sons and daughters have similar levels of formal and informal support for daily care and advice, while there are some gender differences in regard to the availability of other types of social support. It was also found that many types of informal support were significantly associated with a lower caregiver burden for daughters, although this was not necessarily the case for formal support. General instrumental support from formal sources was even associated with higher levels of distress. For sons acting as caregivers, daily caregiving support was the only formal support that was significantly associated with their lower level of distress. Issues of formal support are discussed, in order to reduce the psychological burdens borne by sons and daughters who care for their parents at home.     

Psychological Well‐being Among Older Adults: The Role of Partnership Status

Today's older adults are increasingly unmarried. Some are in cohabiting unions, others are dating, and many remain unpartnered. Unmarried older adults are at risk of poorer well‐being than married older adults, but it is unclear whether older cohabitors fare worse than or similar to their married counterparts; nor have well‐being differences among cohabitors, daters, and unpartnered persons been considered. Conceptualizing marital status as a continuum of social attachment, data from Waves I and II of the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project are used to examine how older married, cohabiting, dating, and unpartnered individuals differ across multiple indicators of psychological well‐being. Among men, cohabitors appear to fare similarly to the married, and better than daters and the unpartnered. In contrast, there are few differences in psychological well‐being by partnership status for women.     

Life Course Changes of Children and Well‐being of Parents

How do children's life course transitions affect the well‐being of their parents? Using a large panel survey among parents with longitudinal information on 2 randomly chosen children, the authors analyzed the effects of children's union formation, parenthood, and union dissolution on changes in depressive symptoms of parents. Negative effects were found for children's divorce, and positive effects were found for children's marriage and parenthood. Mothers suffered more from a child's divorce or separation than fathers. Effects depended in part on the parent's traditional family norms, pointing to a normative explanation of life course effects. Little evidence was found for explanations in terms of altruism or selfish motivations. In a more general sense, this article supports the notion of linked lives suggested by the life course perspective. This research provides stronger support for this notion than the few previous studies that have examined it.     

The Impact of Marital Quality,Divorce, and Remarriage on the Relationships Between Parents and Their Children

SUMMARY

This paper examines data from a panel study on the long-term effects of parental marital quality and divorce on relationships between parents and adult children. Attention is focused on whether these effects vary by age and gender of child as well as the theoretical explanations linking mother-father and parent-child relations. The relational quality between adult children (18-31 years old) and both mothers and fathers is examined from the perspective of both children and parents. Among intact families, parental marital quality has long-term effects on father-child relations, regardless of gender, whereas short-term effects are characteristic of mother-child relations and only perceived by mothers. Further, although divorce without remarriage hurts sons' relationships with both fathers and mothers, it hurts father-daughter relations even more. Mother-daughter bonds appear to be improved by divorce, with declines in income explaining a large portion of the tendency for divorce to affect father-child relations.     

Assisting Parents and In‐Laws: Gender,Type of Assistance,and Couples’ Employment

We use 1995 MIDUS data (n = 2,085) to assess whether the gender gap in help persists across different types of help (unpaid task assistance, emotional support, financial assistance) to parents and in‐laws. We also examine whether joint employment patterns influence levels of help. Persistent gender differences are identified in levels of emotional support to parents and in‐laws: Women spend more time than men giving this help. There are no gender differences in levels of unpaid task assistance or financial assistance to parents or in‐laws. Individuals in single‐earner couples, however, provide greater levels of unpaid task assistance to in‐laws and financial assistance to parents than individuals in dual‐earner couples. Furthermore, financial assistance to parents is positively linked to work hours.     

Complex Families and Late‐Life Outcomes Among Elderly Persons: Disability,Institutionalization, and Longevity

The authors examined the effects of marital status and family structure on disability, institutionalization, and longevity for a nationally representative sample of elderly persons using Gompertz duration models applied to longitudinal data from 3 cohorts of the Health and Retirement Study (N = 11,481). They found that parents with only stepchildren have worse outcomes than parents with only biological children. Elderly mothers with only stepchildren become disabled and institutionalized sooner, and elderly men with only stepchildren have shorter longevity relative to their counterparts with only biological children. The effect of membership in a blended family differs by gender. Relative to those with only biological children, women in blended families have greater longevity and become disabled later, whereas men in blended families have reduced longevity. The findings indicate that changing marital patterns and increased complexity in family life have adverse effects on late‐life health outcomes.     

The contribution of social support to the material well‐being of low‐income families

We hypothesize that the social support available from low‐income networks serves primarily a coping function, rather than a leverage function. Social support and its relationship to material well‐being is assessed in a sample of 632 former and current welfare recipients. Respondents report higher levels of perceived emotional, instrumental, and informational support than perceived financial support, and received financial aid is particularly uncommon. Multivariate findings demonstrate that perceived support is unrelated to employment quality, but it reduces the likelihood of living in poverty and is associated with three different measures of coping. These findings generally support the contention that informal aid is important for the everyday survival of low‐income families, but is less able to assist with economic mobility.     

Ambivalence in the Relationship of Adult Children to Aging Parents and In‐Laws

The concept of ambivalence emphasizes the complexity of family relations and the potential for individuals to evaluate relationships as both positive and negative. Using multilevel models, we investigate ambivalence in adult children's relationships with their aging parents and in‐laws (N= 1,599). We focus on factors predicting adult children's ambivalence toward parents and in‐laws within a gendered kinship structure that shapes these relations. We conclude that ambivalence is a useful concept for representing the complexity of parent‐child relationships and is produced within the context of social relations structured by gender and kinship. Results show greater ambivalence among dyads of women, toward in‐laws, among those in poor health, for daughters providing assistance, and for adult children with poor parental relations in early life.     

Exploring the Relationship Among Mental Health Concerns,Social Support,and Relationship Satisfaction in Female Same-Sex Couples

The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the relationship among internal factors (mental health concerns) that affect relationship satisfaction and contextual factors (social support) that affect relationship satisfaction in female same-sex couples (N = 99). Correlation and regression analyses indicated significant relationships among the variables. Specifically, mental health concerns were negatively correlated with relationship satisfaction whereas social support was positively correlated with relationship satisfaction. Mental health concerns and social support were found to be significant predictors of relationship satisfaction. Implications for practitioners are provided.