How to meet the demands of long-term care is a pressing issue in ageing societies. In most countries, care systems depend on the capability and willingness of family members to fill the gap between existing needs and formal service provision. Understanding the motivations of adult children to engage in parent care is, therefore, of central importance. The existing research literature offers different explanations, and here we concentrate on two key perspectives: normative and affectual commitments. Based on longitudinal data from two waves of the Norwegian Life Course, Ageing and Generation Study (2007 and 2017), we investigate to what extent adult children's previous attitudes towards filial responsibility norms and their perceived quality of the relationship to parents (in 2007) are associated with subsequent care-giving to ageing mothers and fathers (in 2017). The analyses show no evidence of a correlation between support of general filial responsibility norms and provision of help and care 10 years later. Perceived quality of the relationship, on the other hand, is associated with subsequent help and care-giving. The patterns are similar for daughters and sons. We conclude that within the context of a comprehensive welfare state, like the Norwegian, care-giving seems to be more of an individual choice than a societal prescription.

Little is known about the effects of informal care-giving on employees' absenteeism due to illness. This paper therefore provides a longitudinal analysis of the consequences of taking on informal care-giving for men's and women's working hours and workplace absenteeism due to illness. Data were taken from the Dutch Labour Supply Panel (waves 2004–2018); 495 of the 6,452 male observations in this panel and 696 of the 5,961 female observations had taken on informal care-giving. It was tested whether respondents who became (intensive) informal carers were more likely than respondents who remained non-care-givers to reduce their work hours or stop working between waves t and t1, or to be absent from work due to illness in wave t1. (Multinomial) logistic regression analyses showed that taking on informal care reduced women's working hours when the care they provided was intensive, but not men's. The predicted probability of women reducing their work hours was 12 per cent if they had remained non-care-givers between waves t and t1, 15 per cent if they had started giving non-intensive care and 19 per cent if they had begun providing intensive help. In addition, starting to provide (non-intensive) informal care increased the risk of workplace absenteeism among both women and men. The study highlights the need for workplace policies that prevent female carers from reducing their work hours, and enable male and female carers to continue working in a healthy way.

Policy responses to population ageing have focused on lengthening working lives, overlooking inequalities in older adults’ participation in unpaid activities. This paper examines participation in paid and unpaid activities between the ages of 55 and 70 to answer two questions: how do people navigate pathways of paid work, informal care, volunteering, civic participation and housework in mid to later life?; and how do these pathways relate to gender, socio-economic and health inequalities? Two-staged latent class analysis was used to identify activity pathways using data from the British Household Panel Survey (1996–2008). Multinomial logistic models assessed associations between latent pathways and socio-demographic and health characteristics. Three pathways were observed: full-time work to low activity (49%), part-time and in-home work (34%) and multiple activities (16%). Aside from retirement from full-time work, the pathways of participation in paid and unpaid activities were characterised by continuity; substitution between different forms of paid and unpaid work was not observed. Participation in multiple paid and unpaid activities was more common for respondents in better health and of higher socio-economic status. Since the promotion of paid work and volunteering in later life may mainly benefit individuals in advantaged circumstances, policies should avoid taking a blanket approach to encouraging participation in multiple activities, a key component of active ageing.

Increasing longevity has led to a rising number of adult children who are at higher ages when they provide care for their parents. Drawing on the lifecourse approach and exchange theory, the paper addresses similarities and differences in parent care between late middle-aged and older adult children. The study uses the UK Household Longitudinal Study, restricting the analysis sample to individuals aged 50 and older with a living parent or parent-in-law. It presents multivariate models to examine differences between late middle-aged (aged 50–64) and older (aged 65+) children in being a parent carer, providing intensive care, the duration of parent care and providing selected types of help to parents. The involvement in parent care increases among women up to the end of their seventh decade of life and for men up to their eighth decade of life. At higher ages, the proportion of parent carers decreases more strongly for women than men. Older carers have shorter care-giving episodes than younger carers, but there is no significant difference in the type of care provided. Even past retirement age, parent care remains classed and gendered, with women from lower social classes having the highest likelihood of providing intensive parent care in old age. Having dependent children or living in a non-marital union depress the likelihood of caring for a parent even past retirement age.

With increasing life expectancy, changes in family structure and, most recently, the relaxation of the hitherto strict family planning policies, understanding how mid-life individuals support multiple generations, particularly their older parents and younger grandchildren, is of increasing research and policy significance in China. This paper analyses data from the 2011 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) to examine the characteristics of Chinese mid-life individuals aged 45–64 who are potentially being ‘sandwiched’ between providing care to older parents/parents-in-law and/or younger grandchildren (under age 16). Binary logistic and multinomial regression models shed light on the factors associated with providing support to one generation or multiple generations. The results highlight that amongst the Chinese mid-life sandwich generation, 58 per cent only provide care to their young grandchildren, 23 per cent only provide care to their parents/parents-in-law, whilst 15 per cent are simultaneously supporting both generations. Rather than acting as competing demands upon the mid-lifers’ time, the multivariate analysis provides evidence that the provision of intergenerational care is complementary, with caring for grandchildren increasing the probability of also supporting one's parents/parents-in-law, and vice versa. However, an increase in the number of younger grandchildren has a negative impact on the care provided to older parents/parents-in-law, indicating that at higher care intensities there may be competing demands across the generations.

While research evidence indicates that older adults provide substantial amounts of financial, emotional and practical support to their adult children, little is known about the lifestyle-related drivers of providing such support or how these may be associated with changing late life in late modernity. Emerging popular discourses increasingly portray older adults as a group adopting new lifestyles, pursuing their own interests and rejecting normative family obligations. Using data from the Danish Longitudinal Study of Ageing, we examine first, cohort, age and period trends in the provision of informal support in 1997–2012 in Denmark; and second, the socio-economic and lifestyle factors associated with the likelihood of providing help to adult children. We find notably that, overall, older adults’ provision of informal support to their adult children has increased over time and that active lifestyles do not decrease the provision of support to adult children. However, in later mid-life (52–62 years), having full-time employment and high work-related stress decreases the likelihood of providing help. The results indicate that while older adults play an important role in providing support, external stressors such as work–life imbalance in later life may interfere with their engagement in intergenerational relationships.

This study describes what types of service use barriers older adults' informal care-givers perceive and examines how these barriers differentiate care-giver service use patterns. Analysing the 2004 National Long-Term Care Survey and Informal Care-giver Data Set (N=1908) in the United States of America, this study reports the prevalence of service barriers for each type of service as well as for overall service use. Service barriers are measured in terms of availability, awareness, affordability, staff quality, privacy violation, complex bureaucracy, language barriers, qualification of each programme and no thought of service. Andersen's health behaviour model guides determinants related to care-giver service use patterns. As a main outcome, care-giver service use patterns (light service users, selective in-home users, and multiple service users) are examined in relation to service use barriers when other predisposing, enabling and need variables are controlled. Of the ten service use barriers defined in this study, awareness and no thought of service are the most prevalent barriers. Care-givers reporting service barriers of availability, awareness and affordability are more likely to be light service users compared to multiple service users and selective in-home service users. These findings highlight the significance of enhancing awareness of care-giver supportive services as well as increasing availability and financial support for service use.