Research on Aging

The scope of explanation for retirement behavior could be greatly enlarged by acknowledging workers’ extended engagement with the question before the event—its “givenness” in their future, and their course of action toward it. This study provides evidence for such extended involvement among workers aged 51 to 61 in the 1992 Health and Retirement Study (HRS) who saw themselves being within 15 years of retiring. To the extent that workers foresaw less time left at work, they reported more frequent thinking and talking about retirement. This pattern was quite general. The consideration given to retirement was, as expected, more frequent in circumstances that might orient workers toward the future. However, even absent these circumstances, subjective proximity still predicted the topicality of retirement. Widely held, albeit individual, timetables for retirement demonstrate its embeddedness in the subjective life course of older workers.

We examine patterns of coresidence between elders and their adult children using a very large sample (N greater than 3.5 million) of individuals 60 and older from the 1990 decennial census. The size of the data set allows for very fine demographic detail. The study presents cross-sectional data on the probability that an elder coresides with a child, disaggregated by the elder’s gender, age (in single years), and presence or absence of spouse, and by the child’s gender. Findings include the following: (1) Younger elders are more likely to coreside with sons, and older elders are more likely to coreside with daughters; (2) for men without spouses, coresidence rates with both sons and daughters increase monotonically from age 60 to 90; and (3) among all of the groups that analyzed, only women over age 80 without spouses are more likely to live with daughters than sons.

This study explores the relationship between intergenerational social support and the psychological well-being of older Chinese parents. Effects of structural, functional, emotional, and appraisal social support on older Chinese parents’ well-being were tested by analyzing data collected from a random sample of 3,039 persons aged 55 and over who participated in the 1992 baseline survey of the Beijing Multidimensional Longitudinal Study on Aging (BMLSOA). Multiple regression is used to determine whether intergenerational exchanges of social support influence older parents’ morale. Findings reveal that providing instrumental support to children and satisfaction with children directly improve parents’well-being. The benefits of receiving support from children are fully mediated by parents’satisfaction with their children. The positive effects of providing functional support are magnified among parents who adhere to more traditional norms regarding family support. The results suggest that the psychological benefits of intergenerational support exchanges should not be ignored when developing elder care policy in China.

This study examines the effect of family caregiving on the probability that nursing home residents would be discharged to the community. The effect of the number of hours of informal care on the probability of nursing home discharge was estimated using a logistic regression of a 6-week postadmission location (home or institution) on the number of hours of informal care in the first 2 weeks in the nursing home, of caregiver visits, and other patient factors. The odds of being discharged to their home were higher for those who received more care that is informal. Informal care may increase the quality and the amount of care that residents receive, thus, influencing rehabilitation outcomes and returns to home. Caregiving families may advocate for residents and signal to nursing home staff that the resident has a well-functioning support system.