RELIGION AND INTERGENERATIONAL ASSISTANCE: Distinct Differences by Adult Children's Gender and Parent's Marital Status

Using data from a national and intergenerational survey in 1997, this study examines the link between religion and intergenerational assistance between parents and adult children. Two possibilities are tested. First, religion and assistance are positively associated because religion promotes general prosocial and helping beliefs and behaviors. Second, assistance is greater between parents and adult children who are religiously congruent because strong intergenerational relations are based on parent-child consensus on values and beliefs. The hypotheses are tested separately for continuously married and divorced parents, and interaction models are estimated to determine if the effect of religion varies between adult daughters and sons. Findings support the second argument—religious congruence is more important than individual religiosity in influencing intergenerational assistance. The link between religion and assistance is positive among continuously married parents and adult children, but religion has a mostly negative effect among divorced parents and adult children. Assistance is especially low when either the divorced parent or adult child or both are evangelical Protestants. The disparity in the findings may highlight the different religious and family philosophies of conservative versus mainline religions.     

“A Fear Like I've Never Felt”: Experiences of Parents Whose Adult Children Deployed to Combat Zones

Despite the increase of research with military families, less is known about the experiences of those parents who have adult children deployed overseas for military operations. This article presents parents’ experiences of having adult children deployed to combat zones. Qualitative data were gathered through an Internet-based survey during 2010. Analyses revealed important themes within the parents’ portrayals expressing strong reactions of fear, worry and concern for their children's safety and well being throughout their experiences. Parents also described frustrations communicating with their deployed children. Support from formal and informal sources was important to their coping, as was assistance from religious and military organizations. Finally, parents reported varied impacts of the adult children's deployment on the parents’ marriages. Implications for future military family research and family life education are provided.     

Kevin and Peter: responses to two ‘preventable deaths’

European welfare states have substantial provision to ensure that children are brought up in conditions that meet the articles of the United Nations’ Convention of the Rights of the Child. In our analysis of two preventable deaths in Germany and England, we focus primarily on Article 18, which directs states to ensure that there is adequate provision to support parents in their responsibilities, and Article 19, which ensures children’s safety and protection. We outline the legal framework, which existed at the time of two child deaths: Kevin from Bremen and Peter in London, both young children who were subject to formal state supervision and oversight. The events – including the press response, their aftermath and the subsequent changes to social work practice through legislation and guidance will be examined. Our subsequent analysis will evaluate the extent to which events altered the balance between Articles 18 and 19 in the two countries, and the extent to which a Children’s Rights approach in this area offers new insights. The analysis will suggest that a rights-based approach offers some benefits for a comparative framework and understanding child and family social work, but also that it is not without some difficulties.     

The multinational transfer of competency-based foster parent assessment, selection, and training: a nine-country case study.

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child mandates (Articles 19 and 20) that alternative care be available to protect children from maltreatment by parents and caregivers. Increasingly, countries around the world have recognized the benefits to child well-being of family-based care as an alternative to institutional care. The special if not extraordinary needs of children separated from parents because of abuse, neglect, and maltreatment and placed with foster families requires a commensurate effort to develop foster families who have special if not extraordinary skills. Methods that are effective and replicable across countries offer significant advantages, reducing investments in policies and practices that otherwise would have to be developed independently, country by country. This case study describes the factors that contributed to the transfer of knowledge in the assessment, selection, and training of foster parents and the impact to date.     

Intergenerational solidarity between parents and adult children: a qualitative research among cohabiting and married children in Italy

The objective of this article is to compare the patterns of intergenerational solidarity between adult children who cohabit or are married and their own parents or their partner's parents through the analysis of 50 in-depth interviews. The research did not reveal any different behavioural patterns between cohabiting and married couples. Financial support provided by own parents or partner's parents and the presence of small children constituted positive factors which intensified the frequency of contacts and improved the quality of the relationship. In the event of illness of a parent, both the married and cohabiting couples provided assistance, especially when the illness was not disabling and there were no other kin relatives. When this was not possible, a private caregiver was hired or close family members provided assistance. Only those respondents who cohabited with a partner awaiting divorce were less willing to maintain contacts with their partner's parents. The presence of a family formed by previously married partners and the old age of the parents of the latter compromised the quality of the relationship and the willingness to provide assistance.     

Personal assistance from family members as an unwanted situation,an optimal solution or an additional good? The Swedish example

The aim of this article was to explore how users experienced and managed personal assistance from family members who are employed as personal assistants. Seventeen users of personal assistance provided by one or several family members, often in combination with external personal assistants, participated. Thematic qualitative interviews were conducted. The participants were between 19 and 58 years old, and were living with various impairments: mobility, sensory and/or learning disabilities. The results showed that personal assistance from family members could both promote and be a barrier to disabled people’s control over their own lives and participation in society. It became evident that the situation could have both advantages and disadvantages for both parties, which puts the focus on the interdependency between the participants and their family assistants. However, the results also points to a potential risk that the welfare state (re)passes its responsibilities back on to disabled people and their families.     

Consequences of Parental Divorce for Adult Children’s Support of Their Frail Parents

Using three waves of data from the Health and Retirement Study, I examined the association of parental divorce and remarriage with the odds that biological, adult children give personal care and financial assistance to their frail parents. The analysis included 5,099 adult children in the mother sample and 4,029 children in the father sample. Results indicate that adult children of divorced parents are just as likely as adult children of widowed parents to give care and money to their mothers, but the former are less likely than the latter to care for their fathers. The findings suggest that divorced fathers are prone to be the population most in need of formal support in old age.     

Towards Greater Recognition of the Right to Play: An Analysis of Article 31 of the UNCRC

Children’s right to play is formally enshrined in Article 31 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). However, few research studies have explored children’s experiences of play from an explicit rights‐based perspective. Using children’s views to illustrate the multi‐dimensional relationship Article 31 holds with other key children’s rights, this article shows how a rights‐based classification of play emphasises issues such as freedom, safety, choice and inclusion. The article highlights the fact that while Article 31 has provided an impetus for play policies throughout the UK, these have not been developed from an explicit rights‐based perspective. The article concludes by suggesting that the Committee on the Rights of the Child could take a greater lead on this issue through more robust monitoring and enforcement of Article 31.     

Intergenerational Exchange Between Parents and Migrant and Nonmigrant Sons in Rural China

This investigation examined whether intergenerational exchanges of time and money resources between older parents and their adult sons in rural China were conditioned on sons' migration status. Data derived from 2001 and 2003 waves of a longitudinal study of 1,126 parents, aged 60 and older, living in rural areas of Anhui Province, China, and their 2,724 adult sons. Random‐effects regression analysis showed that marginal financial returns to parents of providing grandchild care services and financial assistance were greater from migrant sons than from nonmigrant sons. We explain these results in terms of strategic investments in the earning potential of migrant sons and the bargaining power wielded by grandparents who care for dependent children of migrants.     

Adult Daughters as Parental Caregivers: Rational Actors Versus Rational Agents

Using logistic regression analyses on a sub-sample (n = 611) of the National Longitudinal Survey, Young Women's Cohort, the study found that inheritance-related factors added no explanatory power to other factors influencing the likelihood of adult daughters providing personal care or doing household chores for their aging parents, suggesting the motivational primacy of adherence to social norms. The study also found that inheritance-related factors increased the likelihood of providing financial assistance beyond that of other factors, suggesting the primacy of self-interest when money transactions are concerned. This is an important study because it offers insights into developing and implementing public and private incentives and policies to ensure an adequate supply of informal caregivers as baby boomers enter their twilight years.     

Residential Differences in Filial Responsibility Expectations Among Older Persons1

Abstract This study examines variation in filial responsibility expectations-the extent to which adult children are expected to assist and care for their aging parents-among a sample of 440 older persons. The analysis focuses on the relationship of filial responsibility expectations to residential location and tests the hypothesis that older rural residents have higher expectations for assistance from their children than do older urbanites. Current residential location is found to have little impact on expectations, but older persons who were raised in rural areas, particularly on farms, have significantly higher expectations for filial assistance than do older persons from urban backgrounds. Possible consequences of these patterns for the transmission of expectations from parents to children are discussed.     

Understanding sex: the right to legal capacity to consent to sex

This article addresses the right to legal capacity to consent to sex of people with intellectual disabilities. Article 12 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities guarantees the right to legal capacity on an equal basis in all areas of life. This article discusses sex as an area of life in which people with intellectual disabilities are frequently not being granted legal capacity on an equal basis. The article examines current capacity to consent to sex law in Ireland, England and Wales in light of Article 12. It proposes an ‘agreement model’ as a potential alternative that would be Article 12 compliant.     

'I Value What You have to Say'. Seeking the Perspective of Children with a Disability, Not Just their Parents

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child acknowledges the right for children to express opinions about issues affecting them and the right to have these views heard (Davis, 1998). There has been an increase in the number of international studies including children as informants in research, but there is noticeably less published research including children as informants in Australia if they have a disability. Rather, there has been a reliance on parents/carers for insight into their child's experiences. In this article we present the results of a qualitative pilot study where we interviewed parents and their children who have cerebral palsy about their perceptions and experiences of communication in the medical consultation. We found that the views of children and parents were different, further reiterating the need to seek the perceptions of children as well as their parents.     

“I'm Not Going to Leave Her High and Dry”: Young Adult Support to Parents during the Transition to Adulthood

The transition to adulthood is a critical time in the life course, and the role of parental support during the transition has been one of the most prominent discussions in this literature. Yet while research has focused attention on the support passed from parents to young adult children during the transition, it has generally ignored the support that young adults may provide their parents. Utilizing qualitative interviews, this article explores the types of support one group of young adult children provide to their families during this time in the life course. It then examines how this assistance to parents intersects with young adults' ability to meet their own social and human capital goals.     

Still the Favorite? Parents' Differential Treatment of Siblings Entering Young Adulthood

This study examined within‐family stability in parents' differential treatment of siblings from adolescence to young adulthood and the effect of differential treatment in young adulthood on grown siblings' relationship quality. The author used longitudinal data on parent–child and sibling relations from the sibling sample of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (N = 1,470 sibling dyads). Within‐dyad fixed effects regression models revealed that the adolescent sibling who was closer to parents went on to be the young adult sibling who was closer to and received more material support from parents. Results from an actor–partner interdependence model revealed that differential parental financial assistance of young adult siblings predicted worse sibling relationship quality. These findings demonstrate the lasting importance of affect between parents and offspring earlier in the family life course and the relevance of within‐family inequalities for understanding family relations.     

Cash payments in context: (self-)regulation in the new social relations of assistance

Cash payments to meet social care needs offer the possibility for the direct employment of personal assistants using public funds. Empirical work internationally has identified the benefits of cash payments. However, there has been less interest in the relationships between employers and their employees. This article offers some reflections upon the employment relationship from the perspectives of employers who have learning difficulties and their personal assistants. The study involved eight employers, their supporters and their personal assistants in an English city. A grounded theory approach was utilised and interviews were analysed using a framework approach. This article argues that the relational aspects of direct employment arrangements have not been adequately considered in academic literature and the policy framework. These insights can add to debates around how social care support mechanisms can offer responsive assistance whilst questioning the assumed ‘empowering’ effect of an unregulated market.     

Taking stock: parents' reasons for and against having a third child

In developed countries with below-replacement fertility, the proportion of people who have at least three children make a substantial difference to the aggregate level of fertility. This study, based on 40 in-depth interviews with Australian parents of two children, analyses what factors influence the decision to have a third child. Using a grounded theory method of qualitative analysis, the study finds that parents who have decided to stop at two children are more able to articulate their reasons than are parents who are considering having a third child. The reasons for stopping include age and health; work and finances; and the capacity to parent another child. The weighing up of multiple factors is evidence of parents taking stock of personal and financial resources when making complex family formation decisions. The reasons for having a third child are expressed with far less elaboration and are more guarded and personal. We conclude that there is less shared or familiar language for articulating the value of family relationships. The contemporary context is one in which parents are attempting to manage risks related to having children, including the personal and financial implications of time out of the workforce. This study finds a persistent story of limited resources among parents of two children. Policies aimed at increasing fertility need to address this perception of limited resources through direct measures like affordable childcare and more generally through greater government and community support for families.     

The Impact of Cultural Orientation and Higher Education on Young Israeli Jewish and Arab Adults’ Notion of the Adaptive Adult

This quantitative study compares young adults’ notions of the adaptive adult prior to becoming parents in Israel together with the moderating effect of academic education and culture on these notions. Participants were drawn from Israel's two largest ethnic groups: Jews and Muslims. The research findings indicate that each group's ideal image of the adaptive adult is constructed prior to parenthood. The findings may also indicate acculturation process among Muslim Arabs in Israel who are exposed to individualistic values (Israeli Jewish society). This process may modify personal values and preference regarding the ideal adaptive adult in order to integrate themselves and their future offspring into that society. This trend was found to be more common among highly educated members of the collectivist society.     

The displaced and dispossessed of Darfur: explaining the sources of a continuing state-led genocide

The millions of survivors who fled from attacks to Sudanese-controlled displacement camps and the refugee camps in Chad are the living ghosts of the Darfur genocide. The 1948 Genocide Convention incorporates extermination by mass killing and elimination through forced migration as two distinct elements of genocide. Genocide scholars and public discourse emphasize extermination by killing, but they give far less explanatory attention to the elimination processes that the Genocide Convention describes as 'deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction'. (Article II United Nations 1948.) In Darfur, understanding the latter processes requires theoretical attention to the history of food, water, and famine and detailed methodological attention to temporal processes of displacement. We demonstrate how intentional state-led attacks on food and water massively dislodged Black Africans in Darfur from February 2003 to August 2004. The political leadership of the Sudanese state dehumanized and forcibly displaced Black Africans from their homes in Darfur to camps where they largely remain, not only through mass killings and rapes, but also by destroying life-sustaining access to food and water, leading to the genocidal elimination of group life in this region.