Marital disruption (divorce, widowhood, or remarriage) may limit adult children's help to elderly parents. If a child is unable to help, then other members of the family support system (siblings) will compensate by giving additional help. In a field study, 120 adult children from maritally disrupted situations and 145 adult children in intact marriages were asked about their own and siblings' help to parents. Adult children in maritally disrupted situations gave about the same amount of help as siblings, while those with intact marriages gave more help than siblings. The rise in the frequency of marital disruption makes well planned sibling shared helping more important.
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Victor G. Cicirelli (1984) studied this question.
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