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Daughters are a traditional source of assistance in the care of their elderly parents. Past studies of caregiving have failed to exploit the information available in cross-sectional surveys to examine changes in caregiving prevalence with age. In this research, the methodological techniques of demography are used to examine the risk and practice of parental care over the life of adult women. The analyses reveal that parental caregiving is relatively rare at any point in time; however, among older women with a surviving parent, parental caregiving is common. Over one half of adult women with a surviving parent can expect to provide care to that parent at some point in the future. Lengthening life expectancies are likely to increase both the prevalence of caregiving and the ages at which it occurs.
Christine L. Himes (Wed,) studied this question.