Gender Differences in Parent Care: Demographic Factors and Same-Gender Preferences

This study tested the hypothesis that, when aging parents are assisted in the tasks of daily living by their adult children, the gender of the child providing care depends in part upon the gender of the parent requiring care. Data on 4,371 infirm elders and their 13,172 adult children from the National Long-Term Care Survey were analyzed by means of logistic regression. Separate analyses show that adult children are more likely to provide care to a parent of the same gender, and infirm elders are more likely to receive care from a child of the same gender. Because the substantial majority of elderly parents requiring care from children are mothers, this tendency toward gender consistency in the caregiving relationship partially accounts for the fact that daughters are more likely than sons to be involved in parent care.