The impact of stepfamily structure on older parents' frequency of contact with and care receipt from adult biological and stepchildren in the Netherlands.

Abstract

Objectives: Older people are increasingly entering their later years in stepfamilies. Because adult children play a central role in older parents' support networks, there is concern that the generally weaker intergenerational ties found in stepfamilies may imply an impending deficit in the care available to stepparents. It is currently unclear whether there are differences across stepfamily types including stepfamilies with only biological children. The aim of the study is to examine whether there are differences in contact frequency with and care receipt from adult biological and stepchildren in biological and different types of stepfamilies.

Methods: Data are from the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam (1992-2022; ten observations); respondents' ages varied between 54 and 101. An average of 3.7 observations are available from 2,761 parents in biological families and 647 parents in stepfamilies.

Results: Parents in biological families and in stepfamilies with joint children had more contact than in other stepfamily types. There was less contact in stepfamilies with biological and stepchildren formed in midlife and in families with only stepchildren. There were small differences in care receipt; the lowest likelihood was in composite families.

Discussion: Our study challenges the idea that the relationships of the adult child to older parents in all stepfamilies are weaker than in biological families and point to the importance of considering that only some stepfamilies are vulnerable in terms of contact frequency. We query whether stepfamilies are resilient, for example, to greater pressures from a sharp increase in care needs for one or both parents.