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INT’L. J. AGING AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT, Vol. 58(2) 127-146, 2004

REVISITING THE GENERATION GAP:

EXPLORING THE RELATIONSHIPS OF

PARENT/ADULT-CHILD DYADS*

ADAM SHAPIRO

University of North Florida

ABSTRACT

There is some evidence that older parents and their adult children may

evaluate their relationships with each other in different ways. To date, we

know little about what may account for these discrepancies. This investigation

compares the perceptions of intergenerational solidarity among 2,590 adult-

child/older-parent dyads from the National Survey of Families and House-

holds. Further, this study examines a social structural model to test the relative

contribution of individuals’ sociodemographic and social structural positions

to the correspondence between generational perceptions of solidarity. The

findings indicate that there is a high degree of disagreement between how

adult children and their parents view their relationship. Parents are more likely

to report greater relationship quality, while children report greater contact

and exchanges of assistance. While a number of variables influence the

correspondence between generations, the strongest and most consistent pre-

dictors are sex, age, child’s marital status, and residential proximity.

INTRODUCTION

Parent-child relationships are considered to be among the most important rela-

tionships individuals have. These relationships are a primary contributor to

the psychological well-being of both generations (Umberson, 1992); they are

*A previous version of this article was presented at the 1998 American Sociological Association

Annual Meeting in San Francisco.

127

� 2004, Baywood Publishing Co., Inc.

associated with the exchange of various forms of assistance (Hogan, Eggebeen, &

Clogg, 1993); and they predict the likelihood of a child’s assumption of caregiving

duties (Ingersoll-Dayton & Antonucci, 1988). Two fundamental demographic

changes have made the roles that older parents and their adult children play as

joint informal mechanisms of support more salient in recent years. First, the size

of current and future cohorts of older persons will challenge public and private

organizations’ ability to provide formal support to older adults. Second, high

divorce rates and low fertility rates ensure that fewer children will be relied upon

to provide informal support to their older family members.

Given the importance of intergenerational solidarity, researchers have been

investigating the extent to which this solidarity exists in the United States and

abroad. Recently, scholars have discovered that generations may perceive inter-

generational solidarity very differently (Aquilino, 1999; Lynott & Roberts, 1997).

The overarching finding in this body of research is that there is a “generation gap.”

That is, parents tend to have a more positive outlook on their relations with

their adult children than the children do. Yet, to date, we know little about why

this generation gap exists.

Research on intergenerational relationships has several noteworthy limitations.

First, while many studies utilize data collected from parent-child dyads (cf. Parrott

& Bengtson, 1999) few studies gauge intergenerational relations from the perspec-

tives of both generations. To date, we know little about the degree to which adult

children and their parents correspond on measures of intergenerational relations

(Albrecht, Coward, & Shapiro, 1997; Roan, Hermalin, & Ofstedal, 1996). Second,

while theoretical paradigms have been advanced to understand divergent reports

of affective solidarity, there has not yet been a systematic examination of divergent

reports of other dimensions of intergenerational relationships.

The present study is designed to examine both parents’ and their adult children’s

reports of multiple dimensions of intergenerational solidarity using a national

sample. More specifically, I suggest that social structural position may serve as a

significant predictor of parents’ and adult children’s differential or corresponding

reports. Using paired data from the National Survey of Families and Households,

I proposed two primary research questions. First, how do parents and their

children correspond in self-reports of intergenerational relations? Second, do

individuals’ sociodemographic characteristics affect the correspondence between

adult children’s and their parents’ reports?

BACKGROUND

All too often in the study of intergenerational relations, gerontologists analyze

the perspective of only one member of the parent-child dyad. While studies of

multiple generations often report some agreement between generations, there

is evidence to suggest that parents and their adult children often evaluate their

128 / SHAPIRO

relationships with each other in different ways. This rather modest literature

generally suggests that parents are more likely to perceive their relations

with children in a positive light (Albrecht et al., 1997; Aquilino, 1999; Bond

& Harvey, 1991; Giarrusso, Stallings, & Bengtson, 1995; Rossi & Rossi, 1990).

However, much of this generational difference is examined within the context

of affective aspects of parent-child relationships. We still know relatively little

about parent-child reporting differences in other dimensions of parent-child

relationships such as intergenerational exchanges and contact. Bond and

Harvey (1991) found that older parents report greater intergenerational contact.

However, in a recent study of parent-child dyads in Taiwan, Roan and colleagues

(1996) maintained that children tended to over-report contact and support

relative to their elderly parents. Thus, there is a need to clarify the reporting of

intergenerational solidarity among older parents and their adult children in

the United States.

Even less is known as to why parent-child discrepancies in reporting of

intergenerational relations exist. As one of the most widely cited explanations

for parent-child discrepancies in reports of intergenerational relations in the

United States, the intergenerational stake hypothesis (Bengtson & Kuypers, 1971;

Giarrusso et al., 1995) suggests that perceptions of intergenerational relations

may be systematically skewed by the motivations of the particular respondent.

This hypothesis purports that older parents view their effective relationships

with their children much more positively than their children do. These differ-

ences arise due to the fact that motivations and level of investment of each

generation vary at different developmental periods. Younger generations report

being less close to older family members because of their desire to achieve

independence and their lessened relative investment in their parents. Older

generations seek generativity, and have both a greater desire to maintain con-

tinuity between generations and a greater investment in their children (rather

than vice-versa). The intergenerational stake model also proposes that as

generations age concurrently they become more similar. This would suggest

that older parent-child dyads correspond in their reports of intergenerational

solidarity to a greater extent than do younger parent-child dyads. Develop-

mentally, the interests and motivations of parents and children become more

similar as they age.

Three recent studies support the intergenerational stake hypothesis. Giarusso

and her colleagues (1995) support the notion that the intergenerational stake

extends across the life course and is not confined to any particular developmental

period. Similarly, both Aquilino (1999) and Lynott and Roberts (1997) find that

older generations report greater closeness than do younger generations. It is

still unclear, however, as to the degree to which the intergenerational stake

hypothesis holds for other dimensions of intergenerational solidarity, such as

instrumental and emotional support.

REVISITING THE GENERATION GAP / 129

TOWARD A THEORY OF DISCREPANCY IN REPORTED

INTERGENERATIONAL SOLIDARITY

Although the intergenerational stake hypothesis remains the predominant

explanation for generational reporting differences, it fails to incorporate social

structural factors into explanations of reporting differences. Additionally, this

perspective does not account for generational discrepancies in forms of solidarity

other than effective solidarity. As an alternative, a microstructural perspective

(Risman & Park, 1988) suggests that individuals’ enactment and perception of

intergenerational roles may be influenced by the social structural contexts

(i.e., differential opportunities and expectations) that frame individuals’ lives.

In other words, social structure both enables and constrains perceptions and

evaluations of intergenerational relationships (see Suitor, Pillemer, Keeton, &

Robison, 1995).

Recent theoretical work has examined the social structural underpinnings of

intergenerational relationships in later life. The “intergenerational ambivalence”

perspective suggests that “societies and the individuals within them are ambiv-

alent about relationships between parents and children in adulthood” (Luescher

& Pillemer, 1998, p. 414). This ambivalence can be directly traced, according

to Luescher and Pillemer, to contradictions and countervailing forces in society,

most notably the battle between desires for personal autonomy and dependence.

Thus, parent-child relationships in adulthood are viewed as containing irrecon-

cilable contradictions at a social structural level, such as statuses, roles, and

norms (Luescher & Pillemer, 1998).

Discrepancies between parents’ and children’s reports of intergenerational

relations, then, may be attributable to the different social structural positions of

parents and children in our society. The logical transposition of this suggests that

parents and children will have more congruous reports if they are given similar

expectations, resources, and positions in society (Risman & Park, 1988). To

elaborate on this, Burt (1982) suggests that actors who have structurally equiv-

alent statuses have interdependent interests. It is this interdependence, then, that

encourages similar perceptions and evaluations of one’s relationships.

One way in which structural forces may impinge upon individuals’ perceptions

of intergenerational solidarity is the creation of inequalities within parent-child

dyads. Social structural inequalities may create dependency within parent-child

dyads when one generation has fewer opportunities (i.e., economic, social, etc.)

than the other. Recent research has suggested that the dependence of one gener-

ation on the other may generate perceptual differences of intergenerational

solidarity between generations. Aquilino (1999) suggests that children have

more positive outlooks on parent-child relations when the parents have high

educational attainment and the children have low educational attainment. In

this case, an adult child with a relatively limited education may be more reliant

upon better-educated parents. This reliance may translate into more favorable

130 / SHAPIRO

impressions of the parent-child relationship on the part of the child. Similarly, age

and singlehood, two indirect sociodemographic indicators of dependency, may

predict generationally skewed perceptions of intergenerational relations. Albrecht

and colleagues (1997) have found that parents over the age of 70 and unmarried

parents are significantly more likely than their adult child to perceive a potential

disruption in coresidence with their adult child as negative. Thus, we would expect

that variables associated with dependency such as age, health status, education,

and singlehood will predict the overreporting of intergenerational solidarity.

On the other hand, it is expected that when parents and their children occupy

similar social structural positions, their perceptions of intergenerational solidarity

will be more alike. Sex may influence the degree of structural similarity between

generations, because sex-linked expectations and opportunities are such an impor-

tant component of social structure. The mother-daughter relationship is expected

to have the highest degree of correspondence in reports of intergenerational

relations. Research has noted the particularly high solidarity in the mother-

daughter relationship (Lynott & Roberts, 1997; Rossi & Rossi, 1990). In general,

daughters have higher levels of contact with parents and provide more support

to their parents than do sons (Coward & Dwyer, 1990). Additionally, living

arrangements of parents and children may serve as a means of structural similarity.

For example, we would expect the reports of coresident dyads to correspond

more closely than those of non-resident dyads because of the greater interdepen-

dence inherent in coresiding dyads.

One of the more powerful structural forces exerted on individuals are norms

of filial obligation; culturally-bound and highly structured behaviors in which

parents and children are expected to engage. Norms of filial obligation may affect

generational reporting differences. When cultural expectations of filial obligation

are high for a particular generation, these persons are likely to present a more

favorable and culturally affirmative response. While kinship norms are highly

structured, they may be modified by certain contextual factors and life events

(Rossi & Rossi, 1990). Rossi and Rossi identified a number of variables that

account for variation in kinship obligations: age, marital status, and education.

With regard to age, Rossi and Rossi find that kinship obligations are stronger

for older generations (similar to the assertions of the generational stake view).

We would therefore expect that parents are more likely than their children to

overreport intergenerational solidarity, particularly as the parents age. While

obligations to the unmarried in general are heightened, marital disruption weakens

kinship obligations. For example, divorced persons’ perceptions of solidarity

would not be overreported as their obligations decline. However, having an

unmarried parent or child may trigger an overreporting of solidarity. Finally,

education increases kinship obligations, and we would expect that education is

positively associated with overreporting.

In sum, extant studies clearly point to two general conclusions. First, while

the few studies of parent-child dyads find a high degree of correspondence on


measures of intergenerational relations, adult children and their older parents

often perceive and report their relationships with each other in different ways.

Second, while developmental/intergenerational stake models exist to predict

correspondence between parents’ and children’s perceptions of relations, alter-

native explanations of the variability between children’s and parents’ reports

have not received much empirical attention. In this study, I have directly tested

a microstructural model by analyzing data from a large national survey of

older-parent/adult-child dyads. By investigating the perspectives of both adult

children and their older parents, I hope to clarify the ways in which older

parents and their adult children are bound together.

METHOD

Data

Data for this analysis are from the second wave of the National Survey of

Families and Households (NSFH; Sweet & Bumpass, 1996). The NSFH is a

two-wave national probability sample of non-institutionalized persons aged 19

and older originally conducted in 1987 (N = 13,017), with a follow-up between

1992 and 1994 (N = 10,007). The NSFH oversamples minorities, single-parent

families, and step-families. Data were collected through face-to-face interviews.

At various segments of the interviews, respondents were asked to complete a

self-administered questionnaire in order to facilitate the collection of sensi-

tive information. The second wave of the NSFH includes computer assisted

re-interviews with 10,007 of its original respondents.

The NSFH-2 contained a total of 5,356 main respondents who had at least one

living parent. Of these, interviews were conducted with a randomly-selected

parent of 3,347 main respondents (i.e., adult children). In the cases where one of

the parents was deceased, the living parent was interviewed. Of these parents, 757

(22.6%) were eliminated because the parents did not record the main respondent

as one of their children. NSFH administrators have no explanation as to why

this omission occurred. It may be that, during the interview, some parents were

under the impression that the interviewer was interested in their other children

rather than the child who had been interviewed already. The final sample thus

consists of 2,590 matched adult-child/older-parent dyads, and analyses are per-

formed using data from both members of each dyad at NSFH-2. Table 1 presents

descriptive statistics for the study sample.

Less than half of the eligible main respondents lacked complete parent inter-

view data. Given this, several analyses were performed to test for sample

selection bias. Analyses that compared those in the final sample with the 757

dyads who completed a parent interview but were eventually eliminated due to

missing data find no evidence for a systematic attrition effect. No differences were

found on measures of parent-child relationship quality or parents’ and children’s

132 / SHAPIRO

sociodemographic characteristics. There was also concern as to the exclusion of

dyads that did not complete the parent interview at all. These analyses suggest a

systematic selection bias between main respondents (i.e., adult children) in the

final sample and those main respondents whose parent did not complete the

parent interview. Main respondents whose parent completed the parental inter-

view were healthier, better educated, and were less likely to be Caucasian than

those who did not complete the parental interview.

Given the nonrandom nature of sample selection discussed above, a two-stage

procedure to correct for selection bias proposed by Heckman (1979) was imple-

mented in the present analysis. The first stage involved determining the presence

of selection bias and the computation of a predicted lambda value for each

respondent. Lambda represents the probability that each respondent will not be

included in the final subsample, while accounting for respondents’ individual

characteristics (Miller & Wright, 1995). The second stage of this procedure

involved adding the lambda value of each respondent to the regression models.

This procedure removed the bias in the equation as a result of specification error,

and produced unbiased parameter estimates.

Measures

Dependent Variables

The dependent variables represent several dimensions of intergenerational

relations. These variables include: a) frequency of contact either in person or by


Table 1. Means and Standard Deviations for Independent Variables

M SD M SD

Parental characteristics

Age

Self-reported health

(1 = poor, 5 = excellent)

Married

Education (years)

Child characteristics

Age

Education (years)

Married

Divorced

Never married

Widowed

64.59

3.88

.61

12.42

37.63

13.64

.63

.19

.16

.02

9.55

.91

.49

5.84

8.30

2.44

.48

.39

.37

.14

Dyad characteristics

Distance (miles)

Coresiding

Mother-Daughter

Mother-Son

Father-Daughter

Father-Son

Family size

299.26

.08

.38

.27

.20

.15

3.73

768.60

.27

.42

.44

.40

.35

2.10

Note: N = 2,590 pairs.

telephone or mail; b) global relationship quality; and c) exchanges of assistance

with housework, shopping, or errands, and emotional support. All dependent

variables were asked of both the adult child and the parent. Global relationship

quality was assessed with a single item which asked the respondents to evaluate

their relationship with their child/parent on a scale from 0 (low) to 10 (high).

Contact between parents and adult children was assessed by asking both members

of each parent-child dyad two questions about their contact with their child/parent.

Respondents were asked, “During the last 12 months, how often did you see

(child/parent)?” and “During the last 12 months, about how often did you talk

on the telephone or receive a letter from (child/parent)?” Responses ranged

from “not at all” to “more than once a week.” Three measures of intergenerational

exchanges were assessed by asking each respondent whether they had received

or given various forms of assistance from/to the other member of the dyad during

the last month. Housework refers to helping with housework, yard work, and/or

car repairs. Errands refers to helping with transportation, shopping, or errands.

Emotional support refers to exchanging advice, encouragement, moral, or

emotional support. Each of the intergenerational exchange variables is dummy

coded (0 = not received/not given, 1 = received/given) and grouped into three

categories. While many studies combine housework and errands into a single

“instrumental exchange,” category, I left them separate because, while house-

work and errands both represent forms of instrumental assistance, the locus

of activity varies between them (i.e., within/around the household and outside

of the household).

Independent Variables

The independent variables reflect a number of social structural and socio-

demographic variables that have been shown in previous research to influence

intergenerational relationships (i.e., Aquilino, 1999; Eggebeen, 1992).

Characteristics of the parents—Four characteristics of the parents were

analyzed to determine the effect on parent-child disagreement: age (in years),

self-reported health, completed years of education, and marital status. The self-

reported health measure asked the respondent to compare his or her health to

others of the same age. The variable was coded on a 5-point scale ranging from

1 (very poor) to 5 (excellent). Marital status is a dichotomous variable coded 1

for married and 0 for unmarried. There were too few cases of never-married

and divorced parents to include separate categories.

Characteristics of the adult children—Three characteristics of the children

were analyzed: age (in years), completed years of education, and marital status.

Marital status contains four categories: married, divorced/separated, never

married, and widowed.

134 / SHAPIRO

Characteristics of the dyad—Four characteristics of the parent-child dyad

were also examined: residential proximity, coresidence, family size, and sex

composition. Residential proximity reflects the distance between parents’ and

non-coresident children’s residences in miles (log). Family size reflects the total

number of the parents’ biological children. Finally, sex composition of the dyad

is categorized into four groups on the basis of parents’ and children’s sex:

mother-daughter, mother-son, father-daughter, and father-son.

Measuring the correspondence between parents and adult children—Because

visits, telephone calls/letters, and relationship quality are continuous, ratio

variables were calculated to determine the extent to which dyads’ reports of

visits, telephone calls/letters, and relationship quality corresponded. The ratio

consisted of dividing parents’ responses by children’s responses. Thus, a value

of 1 equals correspondence, while a value greater than 1 indicates parental

overreport, and a value less than 1 indicates child overreport. With respect

to intergenerational exchanges, correspondence was determined when one

generation reported giving the other generation reported receiving. Discordance

occurred when one generation reported giving and the other generation did not

report receiving.

RESULTS

Comparing Parents’ and Children’s

Reports of Intergenerational Solidarity

Table 2 presents the results of analyses that test whether parents will be

more likely to overreport intergenerational solidarity than their adult children. In

this analysis, paired sample t-tests were performed for each dyad on the means

of each dependent variable. Contrary to the intergenerational stake hypothesis,

parents’ reports are not greater than those of their children in all cases. As

suggested by the intergenerational stake hypothesis, parents do report signifi-

cantly greater affective relations such as relationship quality and giving emotional

support. Parents also are more likely to report receiving assistance with housework

and errands. However, adult children report a significantly greater degree of

contact (visits and calls/letters), and are more likely to report giving assistance

with housework and errands.

Table 3 shows the general patterns of correspondence and discordance in

parents’ and children’s reports of intergenerational relations. The results indicate

that patterns of agreement vary across the outcomes studied. First, roughly 20%

of the dyads correspond with regard to contact. However, adult children were

much more likely than their parents to overreport contact by telephone, letter, or in

person. Almost 70% of dyads consist of a child overreporting the frequency of

visits, calls, and letters. Second, supporting the intergenerational stake hypothesis


(Giarrusso et al., 1995), parents were more likely to overreport the quality of the

parent-child relationship. Parents overreported the quality of the parent-child

relationship in 59.4% of dyads, compared to 13.7% of dyads in which children

overreported relationship quality.

As seen in the middle of Table 3, the vast majority of parent-child dyads

correspond in their reports of exchanging instrumental forms of assistance.

Most dyads agree that they did not exchange housework or errands within the

last month (67.9% and 61.6%, respectively). In examining patterns of discordance

in reports of instrumental assistance, the results indicate that children were

more likely to overreport giving assistance than were their parents. Dyads in

which children reported giving and parents did not report receiving housework

and errands comprise 15.9% and 14.4% of the sample, respectively. How-

ever, dyads in which parents reported giving and children reported not

receiving housework and errands comprise 3.2% and 5.2% of the sample,

respectively.

In contrast to exchanges of instrumental support, there is much less agreement

within dyads about exchanges of emotional support. Slightly more than 15%

(15.6%) of dyads agree that they do not exchange emotional support. However,

when dyads’ reports correspond, exchanges of support are most likely to flow

from parent to child (15.9%). In sum, the results from Tables 2 and 3 provide

firm evidence that there are generational differences in reporting of intergener-

ational relations. The correlates of these intergenerational differences will be

addressed in Table 4.

136 / SHAPIRO

Table 2. Paired T-Tests and Correlations of Parents’ and Children’s

Reports of Intergenerational Solidarity

Parent Child Correlation t

Visits

Calls/Letters

Relationship quality

Giving help with housework

Giving help with errands

Giving emotional support

Receiving help with housework

Receiving help with errands

Receiving emotional support

3.34

4.01

9.13

.07

.13

.62

.14

.19

.50

4.12

4.84

7.95

.23

.24

.47

.11

.15

.47

.79***

.52***

.30***

.05*

.04*

.03

.15***

.08***

.08***

–42.37***

–35.70***

28.30***

–17.89***

–11.05***

11.00***

4.20***

3.70***

1.94

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Tab

le3

.P

att

ern

so

fC

orr

esp

on

den

ce

inP

are

nts

’an

dC

hild

ren

’sR

ep

ort

so

fIn

terg

en

era

tio

nalS

olid

ari

ty

Vis

its

Calls

/

lett

ers

Rela

tio

nsh

ip

qu

alit

yH

ou

sew

ork

Err

an

ds

Em

otio

nal

su

pp

ort

Co

rresp

on

den

ce

(%)

Pare

nt

overr

ep

ort

(%)

Ch

ildo

verr

ep

ort

(%)

Co

rresp

on

den

ce

Ch

ildg

ives

an

dp

are

nt

receiv

es

(%)

Pare

nt

giv

es

an

dch

ildre

ceiv

es

(%)

Ch

ildd

oes

no

tg

ive

an

dp

are

nt

do

es

no

tre

ceiv

e(%

)

Pare

nt

do

es

no

tg

ive

an

dch

ildd

oes

no

tre

ceiv

e(%

)

Pare

nt

overr

ep

ort

Pare

nt

giv

es

an

dch

ildd

oes

no

tre

ceiv

e(%

)

Pare

nt

receiv

es

an

dch

ildd

oes

no

tg

ive

(%)

Ch

ildo

verr

ep

ort

Ch

ildre

ceiv

es

an

dp

are

nt

do

es

no

tg

ive

(%)

Ch

ildg

ives

an

dp

are

nt

do

es

no

tre

ceiv

e(%

)

N

23

.9

6.4

69

.7

— — — — — — — —

23

05

19

.9

8.6

71

.5

— — — — — — — —

23

05

26

.8

59

.4

13

.7

— — — — — — — —

24

94

— — — 0.0

0.5

0.6

67

.9

3.2

6.1

5.8

15

.9

25

91

— — — 0.0

1.1

1.8

61

.6

5.2

8.8

7.1

14

.4

25

91

— — — 0.0

15

.9

3.3

15

.6

13

.7

23

.1

6.9

21

.4

25

91


The Correlates of Parents’ and

Children’s Reports

To determine the predictors of discrepant and corresponding reports of

intergenerational contact and relationship quality, a series of regression models

is presented in Tables 4 and 5. In Table 4, OLS regression models are estimated

with each of the dependent variables as a ratio of parents’ reports relative to

children’s reports. In Table 5, multinomial regression models are estimated that

predict the probability of either parent or child overreporting. Each dependent

variable is regressed on parental characteristics, children’s characteristics, dyad

characteristics, and a selection variable (lambda).

138 / SHAPIRO

Table 4. OLS Regression Predicting Correspondence on Visits,

Calls/Letters, and Relationship Quality

Visits Calls/letters

Relationship

quality

Parental characteristics

Age

Health

Education

Married

Child characteristics

Age

Education

Divorceda

Never marrieda

Widoweda

Dyad characteristics

Distance

Coresiding

Family size

Mother-sonb

Father-daughterb

Father-sonb

Lambda

N

R2

–.002

–.002

–.001

–.035*

–.001

–.001

–.012

–.031

–.041

–.004

—

.011*

.015

.060***

.057**

.060

2304

.017

.000

.019

–.004

–.005

–.003

–.008

.027

–.037

–.032

–.012*

—

.011

.031

.039

.092**

–.035

2294

.022

.000

–.033*

–.001

–.015

.001

.013*

.027

–.022

.272**

.004

–.094

.000

–.034

.080*

.099**

–.015

2493

.020

aMarried is the omitted category. bMother-daughter is the omitted category.

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Tab

le5

.M

ultin

om

ialLo

git

Reg

ressio

nP

red

ictin

gC

orr

esp

on

den

ce

on

Inte

rgen

era

tio

nalE

xch

an

ges

Ho

usew

ork

Err

an

ds

Em

otio

nalsu

pp

ort

Pare

nt

overr

ep

ort

vs.ag

reem

en

t

Ch

ildo

verr

ep

ort

vs.ag

reem

en

t

Pare

nt

overr

ep

ort

vs.ag

reem

en

t

Ch

ildo

verr

ep

ort

vs.ag

reem

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It is also plausible that discrepant reports may result from temporally asyn-

chronous interviews of parents and children. Of particular concern are those

questions that are temporally bound, such as whether intergenerational exchanges

occurred within the 30 days preceding the interview. I examined this possibility in

ancillary analyses (not shown) using the interview dates provided by the NSFH for

both parents and children. The median time between interviews was two months,

and the modal discrepancy was one month. There were no significant correlations

between temporal asynchronicity and parent-child concordance on any of the

outcome measures. In fact, the largest bivariate correlation coefficient was .02.

Furthermore, when time between interviews was added to the regression models,

the substantive results were unchanged.

The results in Table 4 indicate that both parents’ and children’s characteristics

are weakly associated with patterns of correspondence between generations.

There are few significant or consistent effects of parental marital status, parental

and child education, or health on parent-child correspondence. While children’s

marital status has little influence on correspondence, the results suggest that

when parents are unmarried, they are more likely to overreport visits.

The residential proximity of parents and children is an important predictor of

reporting differentials (Tables 4 and 5). Distance is positively associated with

child overreporting of telephone calls and letters. Distance between parents and

children also increases the probability of agreement with respect to exchanges

of housework and errands, primarily because distance makes it difficult to pro-

vide these kinds of exchanges. Coresident dyads were more likely to overreport

exchanges of assistance than their nonresident counterparts. This finding suggests

that the disparity between parents’ and children’s reports of affective relations will

increase when parents and children live apart. In contrast, coresidence increases

conflicting reports of exchanges of assistance.

The results clearly show that fathers are most likely to overreport inter-

generational solidarity. Fathers were more likely than mothers to overreport

the frequency of telephone calls/letters, visits, and relationship quality, regardless

of the child’s sex. With regard to giving assistance and support, fathers in

father-daughter dyads were significantly more likely to overreport their contri-

bution of housework than were mother-daughter dyads. Mothers in mother-

daughter dyads were the least likely to overreport giving emotional support to

their child. Examining children in father-child dyads, daughters were less likely

to overreport giving assistance with housework, and both daughters and sons

were less likely to overreport giving assistance with errands and emotional support

than were daughters in mother-daughter dyads.

The effect of age on reporting discrepancies is mixed. In contrast to the

intergenerational stake hypothesis, there are no effects of parents’ or children’s

age on contact or relationship quality. However, parents’ age is an important

predictor of child overreporting. As seen in Table 5, parents’ age is positively

associated with children reporting giving more assistance and support to their

140 / SHAPIRO

parents. On the other hand, child’s age is negatively associated with child over-

reports of giving help with housework or errands.

Few effects of parents’ marital status on reporting discrepancies were evi-

denced. Children were significantly more likely to overreport visits when their

parent was married, and children with an unmarried parent were more likely to

overreport giving assistance with errands than were children with a married parent.

However, we can generalize from Table 5 that children tend to overreport their

contributions of assistance and support when they are unmarried. Compared to

married children, divorced or never-married children consistently overreport their

assistance with housework, errands, and emotional support.

DISCUSSION

This investigation was designed to explore both the extent to which adult

children’s and older parents’ reporting of intergenerational solidarity differed, as

well as the correlates of these differential reports. Many scholars have argued

that perspectives of both generations must be examined, but few studies report

such data. The second wave of the NSFH (n = 2,590) provided an opportunity to

study this question from the perspective of both generations using nationally

representative data. The findings from the present study certainly support the call

from researchers for the use of multiple perspectives in family research.

How Do Parents and Their Children Correspond

in Self-Reports of Intergenerational Relations?

The results of this study suggest that there is generally a high level of agreement

between how parents and children view their relationships with each other.

Consistent with Roan and colleagues’ (1996) findings, roughly 60% of parent-

child dyads agreed on exchanges of instrumental forms of assistance and contact.

For optimists, this finding suggests that the analysis of data from a single

informant may not be as skewed as one might think. However, the level of

agreement is far too low to consider ruling out the necessity of multiple per-

spectives in family gerontology.

On the other hand, adult children’s and their parents’ reports of their relation-

ships are often discordant. For example, fewer than 35% of parent-child dyads

agreed in their reports of exchanges of emotional support. There is also some

confirmation of the first hypothesis of this study based on the intergenerational

stake hypothesis (Giarrusso et al., 1995). Parents in the present study tended

to overreport the quality of both the parent-child relationship and then giving

and receiving of emotional support, both of which reflect the affective nature

of parent-child solidarity. However, the findings herein suggest that the

intergenerational stake hypothesis only holds for measures of affective

solidarity. In the present study, adult children were likely to overreport both the


amount of contact and the exchanges of assistance they had with their parent,

a finding similar to that of Roan et al. (1996). Rossi and Rossi (1990) argue

that this finding may suggest some form of “frustrated altruism” on the part

of parents wherein parents reduce their exchanges of assistance in awareness

of the child’s need for independence. This, Rossi and Rossi suggest, may

contribute to the underestimation of the parent’s share of intergenerational

exchanges.

What Factors Predict the Correspondence between

Adult Children’s and Their Parents’ Reports?

In general, sociodemographic characteristics of parents and children have a

modest influence on parent-child correspondence. The variables in the multi-

variate analyses account for only a small proportion of the variance in reporting

differentials. However, several patterns in the data are worth noting.

Within the realm of individual characteristics, parents’ and children’s age were

strong predictors of discordance, particularly with respect to intergenerational

exchanges. Parent age was positively associated with the probability of child

overreporting for all assistance variables, and child age was negatively associated

with child overreporting of exchanges of housework and errands. These findings

do not support the claim of the intergenerational stake hypothesis that, as children

and parents age, their reports of intergenerational solidarity converge as their

developmental needs become more similar. However, from a microstructural

perspective, children with older parents may feel strong cultural pressures to

provide assistance to their parents as advanced age increases the probability

of their needing assistance. On the other hand, younger children may overreport

because of their dependence on older parents, as dependency may create an

overcommitment to a particular relationship. It is still unclear as to why age did

not affect other outcomes such as relationship quality and contact, or why age

did not influence parental overreporting.

Marital status was a consistent and strong correlate of adult children over-

reporting their provision of assistance and emotional support to their parents. In

particular, divorced and never-married adult children were significantly more

likely than their married counterparts to overreport giving assistance and support.

This finding is in contrast to the expectation that non-married persons, particularly

the divorced, would be less likely to overreport providing assistance and support

for their parent or child due to a weakening of kinship obligations (Rossi &

Rossi, 1990). One possible explanation of this finding is that these divorced and

never-married adult children may be more dependent upon their parents than

married children. Adult children often become more reliant on their parents after

crises in their lives such as divorce (Soldo, Sharma, & Campbell, 1984; Wolf,

1984). As discussed previously, this reliance may trigger overreporting.

142 / SHAPIRO

Dyad-level variables were more consistently related to parent-child disagree-

ment in these analyses. The sex of dyad members was an important predictor of

parent-child reporting. With regard to sex, parent-child agreement is most likely

achieved when parents and children are of the same sex, and when the parent is

female. This finding supports the microstructural argument that sex similarity,

particularly in mother-daughter dyads, may breed similarity in the perception of

parent-child solidarity. The finding that mother-child dyads are most likely to

correspond supports the findings of Lynott and Roberts (1997), who determined

that females perceive less of a “generation gap” than do males.

Contrary to the predictions of microstructural theory, father-son dyads were

not consistently more likely to report concordance than father-daughter dyads.

Rather, these findings suggest that fathers have an overly optimistic view

regarding their relationship with their children. This corroborates Seltzer and

Brandreth (1995), who found that fathers report higher levels of involvement

with children than found in mothers’ reports of father involvement. Why are

fathers more likely to overreport their solidarity with adult children? Recent

scholarship on fatherhood has pointed to a contradiction between conflicting

cultural ideologies of fatherhood and social structure (Daly, 1994). While fathers

are increasingly called upon to participate in their children’s lives, they may be

restricted from doing so by structural barriers such as men’s work roles, greater

mobility, and a lower probability of coresidence. It is plausible that fathers

are overreporting their solidarity as a response to changing cultural ideologies

about fathering.

An important finding herein was the effect of residential proximity on parent-

child reporting discrepancies. The results suggest that, as the distance between

parents’ and children’s residences increases, children become more likely to

overreport contact with their parent by phone or letter. As suggested by Burt

(1982), residential distance may directly relate to discordant perceptions of inter-

generational contact because of the lack of structural interdependence in these

dyads. Additionally, since adult children often have multiple demands placed

upon them from work and family, children who live farther away may have

substantially more structural barriers to maintaining contact with their older

parents. As such, they may be more likely to take note of the trouble they may

experience to maintain contact with their older parents. Distance is also negatively

associated with parent and child overreports of intergenerational exchanges of

assistance. This finding is most likely due to the fact that non-resident dyads

provide very little help with errands and housework, thus most of these dyads

have little to disagree about.

Finally, coresident dyads were more likely to overreport their share of inter-

generational exchanges than were those who live apart. It is plausible to suggest

that residential proximity may be an indirect measure of intergenerational conflict

that may manifest in reporting discrepancies. As Uhlenberg and Cooney (1990)

have suggested, greater interaction between the generations, as is the case in


coresident households, may increase the opportunities for developing intergener-

ational conflict.

Limitations and Directions for Future Research

Despite the uniqueness of the NSFH in enabling the examination of multiple

respondents within a large national survey, it is not without its limitations. A

substantial portion of those eligible to complete the parent interview did not

do so, or did not provide sufficient information to be included in the analysis.

Such a problem is inherent in any research in which the data are gathered from

two independent sources (Albrecht et al., 1997). Although a selection variable

was included in the multivariate analyses to account for these selection

effects, the possibility that those dyads with poor relationships or in which

the parent had substantial physical and psychological impairments were less

likely to be included in the final subsample cannot be eliminated. Thus, because

of the limits of the data, the findings of this research should be interpreted

with caution.

As intergenerational relations become more important with the “graying”

of society, the need to examine multiple perspectives in family gerontology has

also become more important. The present study provides definitive evidence

that there is indeed a “generation gap”—older parents and their adult children

often view their relationship in very different ways—in American families. This

conclusion should alert social scientists that existing methods of ascertaining

intergenerational solidarity may be insufficient. If multiple family members are

not corroborating each other’s reports, this would suggest that future research

should rethink the operationalization of intergenerational solidarity. Moreover,

these findings suggest that some form of intergenerational ambivalence may

be occurring among parent-child dyads in later life (see Luescher & Pillemer,

1998). Future research should consider the ambivalence perspective in an

attempt to understand the larger social structural context in which parent-child

relationships are located.

I have also argued that existing frameworks for understanding the often dis-

cordant reports of older parents and their children provide an incomplete under-

standing of the multiple dimensions of intergenerational solidarity and the

dynamics within families. While structural explanations contribute to our under-

standing of parents’ and children’s intergenerational relations, they do not account

for a great deal of variation in differences of perception between older parents

and their adult children. Rather, psycho-social processes that capture the

dynamic aspects of intergenerational relations may be equally or more important

in understanding these relationships (Albrecht et al., 1997). Future research

should address the quality, process, and dynamics of intergenerational rela-

tionships with the recognition that multiple perspectives are an essential tool

toward this end.

144 / SHAPIRO

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author would like to express appreciation to Adam Davey, Melinda Kane,

Krista Paulsen, and Rick Phillips for their insightful comments, and to Miles

Taylor for her excellent research assistance.

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Direct reprint requests to:

Adam Shapiro

Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Criminal Justice

University of North Florida

Jacksonville, FL 32224

e-mail: [email protected]

146 / SHAPIRO

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