Mothers’ Functional Limitations and Relationship Quality With Adult Children: Exploring the Moderating Roles of Race and Gender

2021 ◽  
pp. 016402752110448
Author(s):  
Catherine Stepniak ◽  
J. Jill Suitor ◽  
Megan Gilligan
Keyword(s):  
Relationship Quality ◽  
Adult Children ◽  
Functional Limitations ◽  
Later Life ◽  
Structural Factors ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
White Families ◽  
Child Relationship ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Mother Child Relationship

Theory and research on intergenerational relations emphasize the salient role that mothers and their adult children play in one another’s lives. However, little is known about how mothers’ health may shape mother–child relationship quality in later-life. We utilized data from the Within Family Differences Study to explore how mothers’ functional limitations affect multiple dimensions of mother–child relationship quality, as reported by mothers and their offspring, with particular emphasis on whether race, child’s gender, or generational position moderated these associations. Although mothers’ reports of relationship quality were not predicted by their functional limitations, adult children reported higher ambivalence when they perceived their mothers had limitations. Further, adult children in White families reported higher ambivalence when mothers had limitations than did those in Black families. This study highlights the importance of considering the roles of structural factors in shaping the conditions under which health limitations affect mother–child ties.

scholarly journals Revisiting Intergenerational Contact and Relationship Quality in Later Life: Parental Characteristics Matter

2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 139-149
Author(s):  
Hye Won Chai ◽  
Steven H. Zarit ◽  
Karen L. Fingerman
Keyword(s):  
Relationship Quality ◽  
Adult Children ◽  
Functional Limitations ◽  
Later Life ◽  
Middle Aged ◽  
Aging Parents ◽  
Life Problems ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Middle Aged Adult ◽  
Middle Aged Adults

Contact and relationship quality between adult children and aging parents are two widely used indicators of intergenerational solidarity and are often assumed to be positively correlated. However, the association between the two may depend on characteristics of the parent involved. Using Family Exchanges Study Wave 1, this study assessed whether parental difficulties—measured as functional limitations and life problems—and gender moderated the associations between middle-aged adults’ contact and relationship quality with their parents. We found that more frequent email or phone contact was associated with worse relationship quality for fathers who had functional limitations. For life problems, however, more contact was not related to relationship quality for fathers with life problems. The associations did not differ by mother’s difficulties. These results suggest that frequent contact between middle-aged adult children and aging parents does not uniformly reflect better relationship quality but rather depends on parents’ characteristics.

scholarly journals Mothers’ Health and Relationships With Adult Children: The Moderating Role of Gender and Race

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 517-518
Author(s):  
Catherine Stepniak ◽  
J Jill Suitor ◽  
Megan Gilligan
Keyword(s):  
Relationship Quality ◽  
Adult Children ◽  
Functional Limitations ◽  
Family Members ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Intergenerational Relationship ◽  
Gender And Race ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
And Gender

Abstract Consistent with theories of the life course and intergenerational solidarity, families are generally closely tied groups in which one family member’s event affects other members as well. Although the literature has documented that parents and adult children affect one another’s well-being, less is known about how parents’ health shapes relationship quality between family members. In this paper, we utilize data from the Within-Family Difference Study (WFDS) II to explore how mothers’ functional limitations affect relationship quality between mothers and their adult children, as reported by both family members. We hypothesized that the association between mothers’ health and intergenerational relationship quality would be moderated by gender and race. Using multi-level regression modeling, we found that mothers’ reports of relationship quality were not predicted by the presence of mothers’ functional limitations, nor were there any moderating effects of race or gender. In contrast, adult children who perceived that their mothers had limitations reported higher tension with them. Further, daughters were more likely than sons to report greater tension when they perceived that their mothers had limitations (differences between coefficients p < .10). White adult children reported lower levels of closeness and higher levels of tension when they perceived that their mothers had health limitations (differences between coefficients p < .05; p < .10 respectively). However, limitations did not predict Black children’s reports of closeness or conflict with mothers. This study sheds new light on the complex ways in which race and gender moderate the role of mothers’ limitations in intergenerational relationship quality.

scholarly journals Deaths, Disparities, and Cumulative (Dis)Advantage: How Social Inequities Produce an Impairment Paradox in Later Life

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heide Jackson ◽  
Michal Engelman
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
Multinomial Logistic Regression ◽  
Functional Limitations ◽  
Later Life ◽  
Functional Health ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Gender Groups ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Background Research on health across the life course consistently documents widening racial and socioeconomic disparities from childhood through adulthood, followed by stabilization or convergence in later life. This pattern appears to contradict expectations set by cumulative (dis)advantage (CAD) theory. Informed by the punctuated equilibrium perspective, we examine the relationship between midlife health and subsequent health change and mortality and consider the impact of earlier socioeconomic exposures on observed disparities. Methods Using the Health and Retirement Study, we characterize the functional impairment histories of a nationally-representative sample of 8,464 older adults between 1994-2016. We employ non-parametric and discrete outcome multinomial logistic regression to examine the competing risks of mortality, health change, and attrition. Results Exposures to disadvantages are associated with poorer functional health in midlife and mortality. However, a higher number of functional limitations in midlife is negatively associated with the accumulation of subsequent limitations for white men and women and for Black women. The impact of educational attainment, occupation, wealth, and marriage on later life health differs across race and gender groups. Conclusions Observed stability or convergence in later-life functional health disparities is not a departure from the dynamics posited by CAD, but rather a result of the differential impact of racial and socioeconomic inequities on mortality and health at older ages. Higher exposure to disadvantages and a lower protective impact of advantageous exposures lead to higher mortality among Black Americans, a pattern which masks persistent health inequities later in life.

Influences on Sibling Relations in Families with Married and Divorced Parents

1988 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 469-477
Author(s):  
CAROL E. MacKINNON
Keyword(s):  
Marital Status ◽  
Relationship Quality ◽  
Sibling Relations ◽  
Family Form ◽  
Sibling Interaction ◽  
Sibling Interactions ◽  
Child Relationship ◽  
The Family ◽  
Mother Child Relationship

Two regression analyses were performed that tested the relationships between the amount of negative sibling interaction and the amount of positive sibling interaction and measures of relationship quality and family form. When measures of husband-wife, mother-child, and father-child relationship quality were controlled, marital status was not significantly related to either measure of sibling interactions. However, when the marital status of the parents (family form) was controlled, both the quality of husband-wife relationship and the quality of mother-child relationship were positively related to positive sibling interaction and negatively related to negative sibling interaction. Regardless of family form, the quality of other relationships in the family were important predictors of sibling interactions.

Kirogi Women’s Psychological Well-Being: The Relative Contributions of Marital Quality, Mother–Child Relationship Quality, and Youth’s Educational Adjustment

2016 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 209-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Esther S. Chang
Keyword(s):  
Relationship Quality ◽  
Marital Quality ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Parent Child Relationship ◽  
Child Relationship ◽  
Transnational Family ◽  
Positive Correlations ◽  
Mother Child Relationship ◽  
Parent Child

The current study is based on the responses of 153 married Korean mothers accompanying their youth in the United States or in New Zealand while their spouses remained in Korea. Kirogi means “wild geese” in Korean and has come to refer to split-family transnational living for the sake of children’s education. Spillover, or a positive correlation, between indicators assessing marital and parent–child relationship quality was tested within the transnational family context. It was also hypothesized that mother–child relationship quality and youth’s educational progress would be positively and uniquely predictive of indicators of maternal well-being when compared with marital quality due to education-focused Confucian values among Koreans. Results indicated positive correlations between indicators of marital and parent–child relationship quality; and only measures of marital quality had unique associations with maternal well-being.

scholarly journals WEALTH PROFILES AND VARIATIONS BY GENDER AND RACE: A GROWTH-MIXTURE MULTIGROUP COMPARISON

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S733-S733
Author(s):  
Yu-Chih Chen ◽  
Nancy Morrow-Howell
Keyword(s):  
Life Course ◽  
Latent Class ◽  
Dispersion Model ◽  
Latent Class Model ◽  
Growth Mixture Modeling ◽  
Later Life ◽  
Gender And Race ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Growth Mixture ◽  
And Gender

Abstract Wealth is fundamentally affected by various life course characteristics. However, little is known about the role of life course factors in shaping wealth trajectories in later life. This study explored how the longitudinal profiles of wealth varied by gender and race (white and non-white populations). Data came from the 2004-2014 Health and Retirement Study with 16,189 older adults aged 51 and older. With corrections for clustered effect within household, this study used growth mixture modeling (GMM) to identify the longitudinal patterns of wealth, and how these profiles varied by these two important life course attributes. The model began with a separate GMM model for race and gender to investigate the optimal latent class model. These results were combined using multi-group approach to incrementally examine the gender and race invariance using configural (same form), structural (same trajectory mean), dispersion (same trajectory variance), and distributional (same latent class size) test. Results identified four distinct wealth profiles—Stable high, Low and increasing, Stable low, and High but decline—for each race and gender category. The multigroup GMM analyses revealed that the wealth profiles varied by gender and race, but the degrees of variation differed a great deal, with results supporting a dispersion model for gender but a configural model for race. Results indicate that race has a stronger effect in shaping wealth development compared to gender. The findings suggest that understanding wealth disparities in later life could be facilitated by examining how wealth varies by gender and race.

scholarly journals Strains of Singlehood in Later Life: Do Race and Gender Matter?

2006 ◽  
Vol 61 (6) ◽  
pp. S315-S322 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Pudrovska ◽  
S. Schieman ◽  
D. Carr
Keyword(s):  
Later Life ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
And Gender
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