Does Having a Good Relationship
with Your Children Pay Off?

Have you ever wondered whether spending time with your children is worth it?
     According to a recent investigation lead by investigators Dr. Merril Silverstein and Dr. Stephen Conroy, parents interested in optimizing their chances of receiving their children's support in old age would do well to nurture their relations with children early on.
     Using the data from parents now in their 70s and their Baby Boomer children, the study evaluated how an early investment in their children paid off for parents using 26 years of data, from the baseline in 1971 to the last survey in 1997.
     These "investments" can take the form of emotional closeness, spending time together, and/or providing for their children financially. Adult children can "pay back" their parents by providing "social support" in a number of ways, including shopping, transportation, providing financial or emotional assistance, discussing important life decisions, and/or by providing information and advice.
     The research team tested a number of competing economic theories. One was an "optimal investment" theory in which parents invest in their children early on to diversify their "investment portfolio" and hope for some payoff later in life.
     An "insurance" theory is one where parents "pay" insurance premiums early on to collect from their children in times of catastrophe. Lastly, they tested an "altruism" theory where adult children provide for aging parents simply because of the "warm glow" it provides them.
     Their findings show that overall, mothers rather than fathers received higher average levels of support, which is consistent with findings from many other studies.
     Parents who spend more time interacting with their children and provide more financial assistance in 1971 received higher rates of social support in later years.
     These findings tend to suport the "investment" and "insurance" theories. Similarly, adult children react to a mothers' failing health depending on parents' previous "investments." Adult children whose mothers' health is poor during 1995 to 1997 and who were emotionally close to their mothers in 1971 provide the highest level of "social support."
     Is there a silver lining for aging parents whose relationship with their children has been less than perfect? Yes. Our most consistent finding is that there was an increase in the amount of support provided to older parents over the 12 year follow-up period -- even when the early parental relationship was poor.
     An important policy implication from the research is that our lack of support for the altruism theory suggests that since adult children are not likely to provide (unconditional) assistance to their aging parents on their own, programs such as Social Security may be more important than ever.
     Dr. Conroy is an economist who worked with other project investigators during his time with us on the project as a post doctoral fellow. He is currently an assistant professor of economics at the University of West Florida, Pensacola.