Cross-Sibling Effects in Parent-Adult Child Exchanges of Socioemotional Support

Despite recent concern among scholars and the general public about “family decline,” modern families continue to exhibit strong intergenerational ties (Bengtson, Biblarz, and Roberts, 2002). These parent-child relationships are central and enduring, reflecting increasing life expectancy and declining stability in nuclear family ties (Hogan, Eggebeen, and Clogg, 1993; Mancini and Blieszner, 1989). They are a source of social integration that affects the well-being of both parties (Umberson, 1992). Exchanges of socioemotional and instrumental support are central to these intergenerational ties. Such support flows in both directions, though assistance patterns change with age in response to changing needs and resources (Bengtson and Harootyan, 1994; Cooney and Uhlenberg, 1992; Logan and Spitze, 1996; Lye, 1996). Studies of intergenerational relations have generally focused on single parent-adult child dyads or on summary measures of parents’ relations with all children, yielding considerable information about individual ties and overall support patterns. However, as Matthews (2002: 7) points out, “families can be broken into pairs or dyads, but it is important to remember that such dyad members usually are part of a larger system in which the other members affect their interaction.” Her qualitative work has examined this family context extensively, but only recently has quantitative research begun to examine this context by looking at within-family influences on parent-child relationships (e.g., Suitor and Pillemer, 2007; Tolkacheva et al., 2010). The research reported here is guided by a view of families as a network of interdependent relationships. It extends prior quantitative work by examining more directly how relations with one adult child may affect relations with other adult children (siblings). We investigate this by using National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) first wave data and an innovative modeling approach to examine implications of characteristics and relationships of one parent-adult child pair for relations involving other pairs. We focus on socioemotional support, both from adult children to parents and from parents to adult children, because it is the most common and most reciprocal type of intergenerational support (Silverstein and Waite, 1993; Ward, Spitze, and Deane, 2009). It reflects intimacy and emotional closeness that likely underlies other forms of assistance. In the recent literature on within-family influences, routine and reciprocal exchanges have received less attention than has caregiving for frail older parents. Further, although more support is given by parents to adult children, flows from parents to children have received less attention. Using models that include several key predictors of support (proximity, gender of child, and biological/step-child status) and other relevant controls, we assess (1) how exchanges of socioemotional support with one adult child may affect exchanges with other children; (2) whether key characteristics of that parent and adult child may affect exchanges with the other children; and (3) whether these patterns vary by race. In the following sections we review literature that has used several approaches to investigate within-family influences on intergenerational relationships. We discuss conceptual models that have attempted to capture the structural features of support exchanges, using these to develop our own conceptual framework. We then discuss in more detail the research questions to be addressed using our approach.