| This dissertation aimed to explain how the various contexts of family and generation membership, religious affiliation and religiosity, and historical period, shape the degree to which adult children feel obligated to, and actually support, their aging parents. More specifically, the objectives were: (1) to examine change across the lifespan in the strength with which individuals feel adult children should be committed to parental care; (2) to examine how parents influence the amount of support they will receive in old age from their adult children; (3) to examine patterns of congruence or discrepancy between filial obligation to parental care and actual filial behavior of parental care; and (4) to investigate the role of religiosity in predicting such patterns. Analyses were performed using data from the USC Longitudinal Study of Generations (LSOG)---a multi-wave multi-level four generation study. Multi-level growth curve analysis from the first study (N = 4,527 time-varying observations over four time points of 1,627 individuals from 333 families) showed that filial norms are malleable and change over the adult lifespan. Filial norms peak at midlife and weaken in old age, especially after the death of both parents, when generational succession takes place. Structural equation models from the second study (N = 379 mother-child dyads) demonstrated that parents might shape their children's supportive behavior through various mechanisms including strong emotional bonds, demonstration of the desired caring behavior earlier in life, and exchange mechanisms. Latent class analyses in the third study (N = 475) demonstrated that a discrepant pattern of dissonant individuals---reporting strong obligations yet low actual levels of support---was most prevalent (52%). The remaining subjects divide equally into two opposing types of congruent patterns: the uninvolved---those reporting weak norms and low levels of care, and the committed supporters---those reporting strong commitment and high levels of support. Multinomial regressions analyses showed that non-religious adult children were almost three times more likely to be non committed to, and uninvolved in, parental care. Taken together, this dissertation demonstrated that intergenerational processes such as commitment to parental care and actual care should be studied within micro- and macro-level contexts over time. |
