Normative, Structural, and Individual Factors that Predispose Adult Children to Provide Social Support to Their Elderly Parents

This study is based on a face-to-face survey, conducted in 2009, with a representative sample of adults who were aged 45 years or above, living in the urban area of Santiago, Chile. This survey examined the exchange network between adults and their elderly parents, focusing on two of the main explanatory approaches to supportive family interrelations. That is, the norms of filial obligation and reciprocity. The article also investigates factors associated with the structure of needs and opportunities, as well as the family structures of the adult children and their parents. By estimating logistic regression models with cluster-robust standard errors the reciprocity norm is found to be significant, whereas that for filial obligation is not. The estimated models show that receiving support from the parent is one of the main factors that predisposes the adult child to the provision of parental support. That is, such action is favored by incorporation in a network of reciprocal exchanges. Thus, intergenerational ties work in two directions: parents request help from their children but also give them help. The norm of filial obligation, on the other hand, is only significant in the case of women.