Intergenerational Caregiving Between Parents and Their Adult Children: Evidence From a Study of Older Americans

Abstract

The third dissertation essay, "Resource Transfers of Married Households to Parents According to Decision-Making Power," investigates whether intra-household bargaining power affects couples' caregiving decisions during instances of competing parental demands for assistance. The primary focus is on examining how partners' bargaining power influences the relative allocation of time resources between parents and parents-in-law, assuming that children prefer to transfer caregiving resources toward their own parents over their parents-in-law. The findings in this study reject the bargaining theory that couple's parental care behavior results from a bargaining process between the husband and the wife. More specifically, the results did not clearly show that children prefer to transfer caregiving resources toward their own parents over their parents-in-law. Decision-making power, measured by final decision-making authority, also failed to affect the relative care transfers.