BOOMERANG KIDS AND PARENTS WELLBEING ADAPTATION STRESSORS AND
BOOMERANG KIDS AND PARENTS’ WELL-BEING: ADAPTATION, STRESSORS AND SOCIAL NORMS Marco Tosi Research Fellow at Collegio Carlo Alberto Seminar 16 th May 2019
General Idea Linked lives “each family generation is bound to […] events in the other’s life course” (Elder, 1985: 40).
Intergenerational co-residence • Positive effects of co-resident children on older parents’ mental health (Aranda, 2015 [Catholic EU countries]; Courtin and Avendano, 2016 [Southern Europe]; Zunzunegui et al. , 2001 [Spain]). • Negative effects on health (Johar & Maruyama, 2014 [Indonesia]; Maruyama, 2012 [Japan]) and well-being (Lowenstein & Katz, 2005 [Israel]; Russell & Taylor, 2009; Silverstein & Bengtson, 1994 [U. S. ]).
Pathways to Co-residence Implications may vary considerably depending on different pathways to intergenerational co-residence and life course stages. Children who never left home Children who returned home Parents who moved to the child’s home Share a Household
Returning home Fewer studies examining the link between homereturning and parents’ well-being: • Some studies suggested no (Ward & Spitze 2007 [U. S. ]) or positive effects on parents’ happiness (West & Lewis 2018 [qualitative study on Londoners]); • While others indicate that returning to the parental home has a negative impact on parent-child relationship quality (Aquilino & Supple, 1991 [U. S. ]) and parents’ quality of life (Tosi & Grundy, 2018 [Nordic European countries]).
Adaptation I expect that parents’ depressive symptoms increase when a child moves back to the family nest. • Returns to the parental home may generate a sense of “failure” in parents, because boomerang children have been unsuccessful in making normative adult transitions. • Adaptation: after an initial disruption, family establish a new equilibrium and recover to previous levels of well-being (set point theory).
Stressors • Confounders: Returning home may be detrimental to parents, if it occurs in response to a crisis in the life of a child, such as job loss or union dissolution. Children’s unemployment and divorce may reverberate into parents’ mental health (Kalmijn & De Graaf, 2012; Pillemer et al. , 2017; Tosi & Albertini, 2018). • Moderators: Stressful events may also moderate the effect of having a child returning home on parental wellbeing. Having a child who suffers problems in the home may lead to increased worry and depressive feelings among parents (Fingerman et al. , 2011).
Parents’ Socio-economic position (SEP) Two opposite perspectives: • Buffering effect: parents in higher socio-economic position have more resources to cope with financial, housing and psychological difficulties arising from having a child returning home. • Normative perspective: parents in higher socio-economic position may be more likely to experience stress and feelings of “failure” because they typically have more individualistic orientations and preferences for family independence.
Data & Method • Data from eight waves (2009 -2017) of the Understanding Society, the UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS): 40, 000 households. • The sample was restricted to parents aged 50 -75 who had at least one non-co-resident child at baseline. The upper age limit was chosen to reduce the possibility that children return home because of parental need. N= 69, 997 obs. N= 14, 894 parents • Dependent variable: GHQ depression score summarizing 12 items (0 -3), such as losing sleep, feeling under stress and ability to face problems.
Measures • Independent variable: returning children identified by using a question about new-entrant individuals in the household. Non -co-resident children are followed over time only if they lived in the parental home at baseline. Most children were not observed before returning to the parental home. • Calculate the number of months elapsed between the date of the residential move and the date of interview in order to analyze anticipation and adaptation processes.
Measures • Children’s characteristics: 3 dummies indicating whether parents had one or more coresident children (i) unemployed, (ii) in education or (iii) divorced or separated. Plus a dummy for those leaving the family nest. • Moderators: employment and marital states of the mover at the time of the residential move (used as time-constant variables). Parents’ education (higher = post-secondary) and occupation (higher = professional or intermediate; and lower = routine occupation). • Parents’ characteristics: age, age^2, marital status (divorced and widowed), SF-12 physical health, and household net income.
Method • Empirical Model: (individual) Fixed effects linear regression models predicting changes in parents’ GHQ depression score (and robust standard errors). This has the advantage to account for time-fixed unobservable factors. • Distributed fixed effects to analyze anticipation and adaptation effects. • Interactions between time-constant variables (children’s employment and marital states, and parents’ SEP) and the home-returning variable.
Descriptive stats Parents having a child moving back to the parental home (N. of parents: 1, 068).
Results (1): Adaptation Table 1. Fixed effects linear regression models predicting changes in parents’ depressive symptoms. Control variables: age, age^2, marital status (widowed, divorced), SF-12 physical health, a child leaving home, household net income, and dummies for survey year.
Results (1): Adaptation PREDICTED VALUES ESTIMATED FROM FIXED EFFECTS MODELS.
Results (2): Stressors
Results (2): Stressors PREDICTED VALUES ESTIMATED FROM FIXED EFFECTS MODELS.
Results (3): Stressors PREDICTED VALUES ESTIMATED FROM FIXED EFFECTS MODELS.
Results (4): Parents’ SEP PREDICTED VALUES ESTIMATED FROM FIXED EFFECTS MODELS.
Results (5): Parents’ SEP PREDICTED VALUES ESTIMATED FROM FIXED EFFECTS MODELS.
Discussion • Parents’ well-being declined when a child returned to the parental home in Great Britain. This is consistent with my previous findings (Tosi & Grundy, 2018). Novel insights: – Adaptation: An initial parental distress was followed by subsequent adjustment, through which parents established a new equilibrium and recovered to previous levels of well-being. – Stressors: Home returning was particularly stressful for parents when co-residence co-occurred with unemployment. Selection in unemployment partly explains the association between home -returning and parents’ wellbeing. – Social Norms: Returns home by adult children may countervail social norms about independence, particularly for parents in higher SEP.
Thank you for your attention marco. tosi@carloalberto. org
Pre-treatment trends
Differences at baseline
Results (6): Stressors PREDICTED VALUES ESTIMATED FROM FIXED EFFECTS MODELS.
Results (7): Stressors PREDICTED VALUES ESTIMATED FROM FIXED EFFECTS MODELS.
- Slides: 26