This article explores the strength and character of responsibility norms between older parents and adult children in a European context. Data from the ‘Generations and Gender Survey’ are analysed to compare seven countries from the North West to the South East of Europe: Norway, Germany, France, Romania, Bulgaria, Russia and Georgia. Norm strength is measured as the level of support for filial and parental responsibility norms. Character differences are indicated by how conditional the norms are, and how they are balanced between the younger and older generations. The general findings are in line with the family culture hypothesis – family norms are stronger towards the East and South of the continent, with Norway and Georgia as the extreme cases. National differences are considerable for filial norms, but moderate for parental norms. Parental responsibility is relatively stronger in the North West, filial responsibility in the South East. Family norms have a more open character in the West, where the limits to responsibility are widely recognised. Women are less supportive of family obligations than men. It is suggested that where the welfare state is more developed, it has moderated the demanding character of family obligations and allowed a more independent relationship between the generations to form. The level of support for filial obligation is for these reasons a poor indicator for family cohesion in more developed welfare states.

Drawing on the intergenerational stake hypothesis (Bengtson and Kuypers, 1971), this article explores intergenerational congruence and incongruence on filial obligation, and implications for social support, between older nisei (second generation) parents and adult sansei (third generation) children in Japanese Canadian families. Using data from semi-structured interviews with 100 parent–child dyads in British Columbia, congruence on close-ended responses to value statements (degree congruence) and the content congruence of open-ended responses are examined. The findings show the majority of parent-child dyads indicate overall (both degree and content) congruence in filial obligation, especially when a parent is female, widowed, and/or has poor/fair health status. We conclude that despite markedly different historical life course experiences and acculturation processes, both generations continue to regard filial obligation as important. These findings are discussed with respect to implications for social support exchanges given a continued valuation of filial obligation in Asian post-immigrant (North American-born) and immigrant families.

Background: The majority of people in the early and middle stages of dementia are cared for at home by non-paid caregivers, the majority of whom will be family members. Two factors which could have an impact on the quality of care provided to the care-recipient are the caregiver's motivations for providing care and the meaning s/he finds in caregiving. The aim of this review is to explore the potential impact of both meaning and motivation on the wellbeing of caregivers of people with dementia. The review also explores individual differences in motivations to provide care.

Methods: This was a systematic review of peer-reviewed empirical studies exploring motivations and meanings in informal caregivers of people with dementia. Four studies were identified which examined the caregiver's motivations to provide care. Six studies were identified which examined the meaning that caregivers found in dementia caregiving.

Results: Caregivers' wellbeing could be influenced by the nature of their motivations to care. In addition, cultural norms and caregivers’ kin-relationship to the care-recipient impacted on motivations to provide care. Finding meaning had a positive impact on caregiver wellbeing.

Conclusions: The limited evidence currently available indicates that both the caregiver's motivations to provide care and the meaning s/he finds in caregiving can have implications for the caregiver's wellbeing. More research is needed to explore the role of motivations and meaning in dementia caregiving.

Research on the division of family work has focused on household work and child-care to the exclusion of other domains, whereas studies on care-giving for older people typically ignore spouses' support to care-givers. In this paper we apply an approach that is typical of research on spouses' division of family work in caring for parents, in that the theoretical model focuses on the ‘cultural mandates’ that guide spouses' division of care, namely gender ideologies about appropriate roles, kinship obligations, and taboos against cross-gender personal care. Other predictors of the spousal division of care drawn from economic and health-care utilisation models are also examined. The analyses use pooled data on 1,449 care occasions from the first five waves of the US Health and Retirement Study. It was found that most couples to some extent share parent care, and that the involvement of husbands depended on a complex interplay of cultural mandates and contexts. Husbands participated most in personal care for parents if the care was mandated by kinship obligations (they cared more for their own than their wife's parents), and by cross-gender care taboos (they cared more for fathers than mothers). Other cultural contexts (such as race), a spouse's other commitments, health-related ability, resources (including support from the parents' other children), and care-burden also played a role. The findings demonstrate that decisions to care for parents emerge from complex negotiations among spouses and their children and siblings or, in other words, that parental care is a family endeavour.