Cohort and Gender Differences in Psychosocial Adjustment to Later-Life Widowhood.

OBJECTIVES: Despite the large body of literature on bereavement, little is known about the impact of sociohistorical context on individual reactions to spousal loss. This study examines the effect of marital status, time period and gender on physical and mental health, and whether reported difficulties following spousal loss differ at 2 distinctive time periods. METHOD: Two cohorts of older bereaved persons (n = 753) in Switzerland, surveyed in 1979 and 2011, were compared regarding their reports of difficulties related to marital loss. The bereaved spouses were also compared with a group of married contemporaries (n = 1,517) regarding subjective health and depressive symptoms. RESULTS: Marital status and gender each have independent effects on subjective health and depressive symptoms. The effects of widowhood on subjective health differed significantly at both time points. Widowed individuals in 2011, especially women, reported fewer social and financial difficulties than their counterparts in 1979. However, the effect of widowhood on depressive symptoms and psychological difficulties did not differ significantly across time points. DISCUSSION: Social changes in the late 20th century may be protective for older adults' physical, social, and financial well-being in the face of spousal loss, yet these changes do not alleviate widow(er)s' psychological distress.

Grandparental investment: The influence of reproductive timing and family size.

The influence that grandparents have on the life history traits of their descendants has been studied extensively. However, no attention has been paid to the potential influence a grandparent's own reproductive history has on the investment they make in their grandchildren. We use data from 658 Swiss grandchildren and 591 of their grandparents to investigate whether grandparents' reproductive scheduling and family size influence the amount of investment grandparents make in a focal grandchild (shared contacts, occasions to meet, activities, discussions, interests, and important roles the grandparent plays). Grandparents who were younger when they had their first child had more children and grandchildren; this relationship strengthened after controlling for grandparental age, sex, lineage, and education (all P < 0.001). Generally, having more children or grandchildren was associated with reduced levels of grandparental investment. After adjustment for a wide range of factors known to influence investment, having more children or grandchildren and having a first child or grandchild at a younger age were associated with reduced investment in 14 of 24 analyses (all P < 0.09). The association between reproductive scheduling and investment was partially mediated by the grandparent's family size. Interestingly, these relationships were only present in data reported from the grandchild's point of view, not the grandparent's. This analysis provides preliminary evidence that grandparents' reproductive strategies have consequences for the amount of investment they make in their grandchildren. These results are examined in terms of the trade-offs between current and future reproduction and offspring quality and quantity.

Aging parents and their middle-aged children: demographic and psychosocial challenges.

The aim of this paper is to investigate the impact of an extended lifespan of parents on middle-aged women and men from a demographic, sociological and psychological perspective. Based on Swiss data, three main research questions are investigated and discussed in three different sections: (a) How far has the common lifespan of children and parents been extended and how does it affect kinship structures? (b) How accurate is the term of "sandwich generation" in this context? (c) Which are the psychological concomitants-in terms of filial maturity-of being reinvolved with one's old parents in mid-life? The demographic analyses illustrate a considerable extension of common lifespan of children and parents. Combined with low fertility rates this results in rapidly increasing parent-support ratios. A sociological approach analysing the concept of "sandwich generation" indicates that, for women, a new kind of double burden (professional work and family care) is more widespread than being 'sandwiched' between the youngest and the oldest generation. Finally, in the third section, results are reported from a longitudinal study of middle-aged persons living in different social contexts (such as living or not living with a partner and/or children) on the intrapsychic concomitants of becoming reinvolved with one's parents. The response patterns reveal a considerable intergenerational ambivalence. Although the possibility to help old parents depends heavily on living context and is a question of available resources, the willingness to help is also closely related to psychological variables such as attachment.