Who Cares for Which Elderly Parents? Intersections of Race and Gender in Care-Provision for the Elderly

Michelle Goeree, University of Southern California
Bridget Hiedemann, Seattle University
Steven Stern, University of Virginia

We examine the roles of race and gender in care provision for the elderly. Specifically, we address two research questions: How does the role of child gender in parental care provision vary by race and ethnicity? How do patterns of care provision for mothers relative to fathers vary by race and ethnicity? Distinguishing among continued independence, care provided exclusively by a spouse, care provided by an adult child, formal home health care and institutional care, our analysis focuses on families’ selection of the primary caregiver for an elderly individual across several time periods. We estimate our dynamic model with data from five waves of data from the study of Asset and Health Dynamics among the Oldest Old (AHEAD) and test whether the role of child or parent gender varies by race and ethnicity, after controlling for demographic characteristics and activity limitations.