Does Intergenerational Solidarity with Adult Children Reduce Middle-Aged Parents’ Risk of Mortality in Later Life?

Abstract

Although intergenerational solidarity with adult children has been considered to have a positive impact on older parents’ well-being, less is known about the association between intergenerational solidarity and longevity. Based on this background, this study identified multidimensional constructs of intergenerational solidarity with adult children and employed them as a predictor of older parents’ mortality outcomes in the United States. We used data from the 1988 wave of the Longitudinal Study of Generations, focusing on middle-aged parents when they averaged 60 years of age. We conducted a latent class analysis to identify typologies of intergenerational solidarity with adult children and included these results in a Cox proportional hazard model predicting age-related mortality risk between 1988 and 2020 using data from the National Death Index. We found that the best-fitting model revealed five intergenerational solidarity classes: tight-knit, intimate-but-distant, social, detached, and obligatory. Parents in the intimate-but-distant, social, and obligatory latent classes had a lower risk of subsequent death compared to the detached latent class. However, contrary to our expectations, parents’ risk of subsequent death was not significantly different between tight-knit and detached latent classes. Our findings suggest that weak ties bordering on estrangement could raise the mortality risk of parents. However, full integration, which includes support exchange, may provide little benefit to parents’ survival due to having a restricted family network.