title: Marital status of daughters and patterns of parent care.
abstract: Patterns of help to disabled elderly parents from family and paid sources are examined as they vary among five groups of parent-caring daughters: married (n = 234), remarried (n = 56), separated/divorced (n = 91), widowed (n = 52), and never married (n = 59). Parents of all groups received similar total amounts of care from all sources combined, with daughters providing at least half of the care themselves. Never-married daughters, followed by the widowed, provided larger proportions of the total hours of care (77% and 62%) than the other three groups (p < .001). Married daughters had the most informal helpers (p < .001), and never marrieds more often were their parents' sole informal helpers (p < .01). Separated/divorced women who shared households used the highest proportions of paid care.
authors.affiliation: Polisher Institute for Research, Philadelphia Geriatric Center.
authors.forename: E M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Brody
authors.forename: S J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Litvin
authors.forename: S M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Albert
authors.forename: C J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Hoffman
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D017028:Caregivers; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D017533:Marital Status; D008875:Middle Aged; D010287:Parent-Child Relations