Intergenerational Solidarity in Co-Residential Living Arrangements

We investigate different forms of intergenerational solidarity between parents and their adult children, with a focus on situations when parents and their adult children live together in the same house. Co-residence is a form of functional solidarity (providing a living space), and a form of structural solidarity in the same time (a context that facilitates other intergenerational exchanges). Adopting the adult child’s perspective, we first study different forms of co-residential living arrangements (the child has never left parental home, the child had left and later returned, and the parents have moved with the adult child in his/her home), and find that adult children benefit from this form of functional solidarity more often than elderly parents. Second, we study forms of upward and downward support that take place in co-residential living arrangements, such as personal care, emotional support, help with household tasks and childcare, and factors that may influence them. We adopt a theoretical model that accounts for adult child’s and parents’ opportunity and needs structures, as well as for family structure. We find that parents’ old age and inability to perform daily activities trigger personal care from children, but except this case, parents are the ones who offer support to co-resident children, mainly in form of help with the household tasks and childcare, responding to adult children’s needs: time demanding jobs or the absence of the spouse.



Keywords: intergenerational solidarity, types of support, co-residence, Generations and Gender Survey