Close enough? Adult child-to-parent caregiving and residential proximity

Abstract

Adult children are among the most frequent providers for community-dwelling older adults with a disability. This report assesses the extent to which help received from an adult child by older persons with a disability is contingent on the distance between their residences. Using the national Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we selected persons 55 and older with a disability and their adult children (810 older adults; 1767 dyads of older adult - adult child pairs). The adjusted average hours of help received from an adult child was estimated by the distance between the parent's and the adult child's residences using a two-part model with a linear spline of proximity and adjusting for demographic and socioeconomic factors of the parent and child. We found that average weekly hours of help received from an adult child by older adults with a disability declined dramatically as the distance between older adults and their adult children's residences increased, but only up to 2-5 miles. Adjusted average weekly hours of help received from an adult child were 5.99 (95%CI 3.33, 8.65) if coresident, 3.16 (95%CI 2.04, 4.28) if on the same block, 1.16 (95%CI 0.72, 1.59) if 2-5 miles away, 0.79 (95%CI 0.39, 1.20) if 5-10 miles away, and 0.58 (95%CI 0.25, 0.92) if > 100 miles. The amount of help for parents with a disability may require adult children living very near their parents which has important implications for long-term care for the aging population.

Keywords: Aging; Disability; Family and unpaid care; Informal care; Intergenerational care; Intergenerational geographic proximity; Older adults.