MARITAL-STATUS OF DAUGHTERS AND PATTERNS OF PARENT CARE

Patterns of help to disabled elderly parents from family and paid sources are examined as they vary among five groups of parent-caring daughters: married (n = 234), remarried (n = 56), separated/divorced (n = 91), widowed (n = 52), and never married (n = 59). Parents of all groups received similar total amounts of care from all sources combined, with daughters providing at least half of the care themselves. Never-married daughters, followed by the widowed, provided larger proportions of the total hours of care (77% and 62%) than the other three groups (p <.001). Married daughters had the most informal helpers (p <.001), and never marrieds more often were their parents' sole informal helpers (p <.01). Separated/divorced women who shared households used the highest proportions of paid care.