Capacity-Building Grants for Faculty Mentors
CLAS Supplementary Research Support: Anna Hammersmith
Marital Biography and Parent’s Positivity and Negativity toward Children in Later Life
In 2015, nearly 30% of individuals aged 50 and older had two or more marriages relative to 19% in 1980, indicating a growing share of older adults either divorced or were widowed during early or midlife and later remarried. Although widowhood remains a common exit from marriage, divorce to people over 50 is on the rise. Despite increasingly complex marital biographies of older adults, few researchers have examined how different disruption pathways (one divorce, one widowhood, or multiple disruptions) and remarriage are linked to changes in aging parents’ feelings toward adult children. Using secondary data from the Health and Retirement Study (1992 to 2014), I will investigate the association of different disruption pathways and potential remarriage on older parents’ positivity or negativity toward adult children. This research will also account for gender differences as health and parent-child ties of older men and women often differ. This project will involve active participation of a student researcher. This student will assist in literature review by collecting and assessing prior research relevant to the project. The student will also be involved in data coding and analysis for the project using Stata software. Finally, the student will participate in preliminary writing of the manuscript.
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