CARe in an INterGenerational context (CARING)

The project analysed the role played by early life course family formation trajectories (at 16-46 years) in shaping emotional support networks and care provision to old age persons in Europe (50+ years) for the birth cohorts 1927-66. Sequence and cluster analyses, together with multivariate models, explored the size of emotional support networks for the elderly, and the likelihood to report help received or given. It also explored the overlap of the two types of care, i.e. how the emotional support network contributed to also offering practical help or personal care. Analyses were based on secondary data analysis of retrospectively collected information from wave 3 and 7 and cross-sectional data from wave 4, 6 and 7 of the data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) for five countries: Italy, East and West Germany, France, Denmark and Czech Republic

CARe in an INterGenerational Context (CARING)

The project analysed the role played by early life course family formation trajectories (at 16-46 years) in shaping emotional support networks and care provision to old age persons in Europe (50+ years) for the birth cohorts 1927-66. Sequence and cluster analyses, together with multivariate models, explored the size of emotional support networks for the elderly, and the likelihood to report help received or given. It also explored the overlap of the two types of care, i.e. how the emotional support network contributed to also offering practical help or personal care. Analyses were based on secondary data analysis of retrospectively collected information from wave 3 and 7 and cross-sectional data from wave 4, 6 and 7 of the data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) for five countries: Italy, East and West Germany, France, Denmark and Czech Republic

The impact of cohabitation without marriage on intergenerational contacts: a test of the diffusion theory

"In the literature, cohabitation rather than marriage is presented as an indicator of weakening intergenerational ties, either as a cause or an effect. In this paper we compare the frequency of face to face and phone contacts between parents and their married and unmarried children living with a partner in two countries - Italy and the UK - where the incidence of cohabiting instead of, or before, marrying is very different. Our analysis of empirical evidence, based on an ordered category response multilevel model, does not support the hypothesis that in Italy, where cohabitation is still an exception, differences in parent-adult children contacts between cohabitant and married children are much greater than in the UK, where cohabitation is more common and since a long time. While in the UK cohabitation does not seem to have an impact on frequency of contacts, in Italy, cohabitation only increases the (marginal) proportion of those who do not visit and lowers slightly that of those who visit on a daily basis against weekly or monthly, but not the frequency of phone contacts. Also the hypothesis that duration of cohabitation makes a difference is not supported. The main difference we found is that cohabitant couples in Italy have a slight tendency to live farther away from their parents than married ones. This affects frequency of face to face contacts. These findings support the thesis that in both countries cohabitation and marriage are becoming increasingly similarly accepted patterns of partnership formation, which do not affect in distinct ways intergenerational relationships, although the differential residential choices of married and cohabitant couples in Italy remain an issue to be explained. Findings also support the thesis that, in Italy, cohabiting instead of marrying is still to some extent a polarized phenomenon: in the majority of cases it is supported, if not rendered possible, by parents, while in a small minority it is accompanied by estrangement." (author's abstract

Does Gender Top Family Ties? Within-Couple and between-Sibling Sharing of Elderly Care

Most elderly care continues to be delivered informally within families. Yet we still lack a thorough understanding of how care responsibilities are shared across both family ties and generations. We explore the gender dimension of caregiving in the distribution of elderly care between couple members (care provided to parents and parents-in-law and to children or grandchildren) and its associations with siblings' sex composition in a range of European countries. Using SHARE data and multinomial multilevel models, we test how responsibility for elderly care is shared across children and mediated by their partners and their siblings' sex composition as well as how it is combined with other downward care responsibilities, towards children and grandchildren. Results confirm the very gendered nature of elderly care. But who do men shift elderly care responsibilities to? We find that elderly care is more likely shifted to sisters than brothers, especially when caregiving becomes intense. We also find that the lower contribution by sons does not seem to prompt transfers of care responsibilities to their female partners within couples. Finally, although upward and downward caring responsibilities might compete, we find that individuals who are more inclined to provide care tend to do so in both directions

Youth transitions and job quality: How long should they wait and what difference does the family make?

This chapter explores how youth unemployment, discontinuous employment, and working in low-quality jobs affect individuals’ subsequent occupational conditions. Using cross-sectional and longitudinal EU-SILC data (2005–2012) for five countries, the chapter distinguishes between different types of good and bad jobs, examining the effect of family background on successful transitions. Findings show that young people from families of higher social class have better chances of making transitions into good-quality jobs than do youth from lower class families. Securing a good entry job is crucial to achieving a successful outcome, whereas experiencing either brief periods of unemployment or employment continuity has limited effects. These mechanisms are evident across all countries considered. The findings reinforce established knowledge on patterns of stratification, evidencing a direct channel of social transmission of inequalities through education and an indirect channel through better labor market entries