Daughters Offer As Much Care as Possible to Elderly Parents

A new study reveals that daughters provide as much care to elderly parents as they can, while sons do as little as possible.

The latest study led by researchers at the Princeton University evaluated data from the 2004 wave of the University of Michigan Health and Retirement Study that included a sample of more than 26,000 Americans, above the age of 50 years. The researchers found that women offer more elderly parent care than men.

They further found that, on an average, daughters offer an average of 12.3 hours of elderly parent care per month as compared to 5.6 hours of care sons provide. The daughters spend twice as much time or almost seven more hours each month with parents as compared to the sons.

"Whereas the amount of elderly parent care daughters provide is associated with constraints they face, such as employment or childcare, sons' caregiving is associated only with the presence or absence of other helpers, such as sisters or a parent's spouse," said study author Angelina Grigoryeva, a doctoral candidate in sociology at the Princeton University.

Gender is a prime factor in the amount of assistance each sibling offers to their elderly parents in the division of elderly parent care among siblings in mixed-sex sibling groups.

When there is a daughter, the sons dramatically reduce their care-giving efforts and on the other hand daughters increase their care for the elderly parents when they have a brother.  It is clearly indicated that the sons push the parents' care-giving responsibilities to their sisters. This gender inequality is important due to the consequences of elderly care for caregivers.

"Numerous empirical studies report negative mental and physical health consequences, including a higher mortality rate, for people who provide care for elderly family members," Grigoryeva said. "In addition, these caregivers often have to balance elder care with employment, potentially resulting in career sacrifices and lower earnings. Providing care for elderly relatives can also impose significant financial burdens on caregivers in the form of direct expenses, as they often pay for goods and services for their care recipients."

The finding is presented at the 109th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association.