title: Social contacts and receipt of help among older people in England: are there benefits of having more children?
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To investigate whether number of children and, among parents, having a daughter is associated with older people's likelihood of at least weekly face-to-face social contact and later receipt of help if needed.
  
  
  METHODS
  Multivariate analysis of data from Waves 1 and 2 of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Older parents in England had higher chances of at least weekly face-to-face social contact than their childless counterparts but larger family size had only a slight additional effect. For parents, having at least one daughter was more important than number of children. Larger family size was positively associated with receipt of help from a child by parents with activities of daily living (ADL) or instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) limitations. Childless women were more likely than mothers to receive help from friends but even so had lower odds of receiving help from any informal source. Contact with a child in 2002 predicted receipt of help 2 years later.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These results show some advantages for older parents compared with childless individuals in terms of social contact and receipt of help and, among parents, an additional effect of having a daughter. Changes in family size distributions have implications for the support of older people and for planners of formal services.
authors.affiliation: Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK. emily.grundy@geog.cam.ac.uk
authors.forename: Emily
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Grundy
authors.forename: Sanna
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Read
mesh_terms: D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D017028:Caregivers / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D004739:England; D005260:Female; D015577:Geriatric Assessment / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006304:Health Status; D006379:Helping Behavior; D006701:Home Nursing / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D016901:Intergenerational Relations; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D012111:Residence Characteristics; D012944:Social Support; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors