Welcome to the seminar on Families and Generations
Century-Long Lives (CLL) profiling area and PERLA – Tampere Centre for Childhood, Youth and Family Research organize a seminar on families and generations on Monday 19 May at 14.00–17.00 in lecture room Linna K109, Tampere University. No advance registration needed.
Keynote speaker of the seminar is Dr. Merril Silverstein from Syracuse University, United States.
Program
14.00–14.05 Anu Siren (Professor of Gerontology and Director of the CLL profiling area): Opening words
14.05–15.00 Merril Silverstein: Social Exchange in Parent-Child Relationships over the Family Life Course
15.00 –15.15 Discussion
15.15–15.45 Coffee break
15.45–16.30 Research insights on families and generations from Tampere University researchers (three presentations each 15 mins)
- Anu Siren: Longevity and linked lives: Does changing late-life activity impact older adults’ help to their adult children?
- Katariina Tuominen: How is family discussed in the oldest old age? A discourse analysis on nonagenarians’ talk
- Katja Repo: Family life and family time during the COVID-19 pandemic in families with financial difficulties
16.30–17.00 Discussion
About the keynote speech
Dr. Merril Silverstein (Syracuse University, United States): Social Exchange in Parent-Child Relationships over the Family Life Course
Parent-child relationships are characterized by reciprocal exchanges of support across the family lifecycle. However, mechanisms of exchange are little explored systematically in the same empirical model and with data on receiving and providing support separated by long periods of time. Identifying how parents strategically invest resources in their children sheds light on processes that better ensure that support and care are forthcoming from children when parental needs are most acute.
This investigation examined whether earlier financial and service support provided by parents incentivize adult children to provide support to older mothers. The concept of reciprocity is employed to represent four mechanisms of intergenerational exchange: direct, indirect, anticipatory, and contingent.
Data derived from 470 baby-boom children participating in the Longitudinal Study of Generations. Parental provisions included financial and childcare support, bequest intentions, and assistance provided to grandparents. These provisions served as lagged predictors of instrumental and socio-emotional support provided to older mothers in five waves between 1997 and 2021/22.
We find that reciprocity as insurance against unmet need is mostly limited to financial assistance, a key resource helping children manage economic challenges of adulthood. We suggest future research continue to refine theory and empirical identification of motivations behind intergenerational exchanges.
About Merril Silverstein
Dr. Merril Silverstein is a distinguished scholar in the field of ageing studies, holding the Marjorie Cantor Endowed Chair in Aging at Syracuse University. He is a professor in both the Maxwell School’s Department of Sociology and the Falk College’s Department of Human Development and Family Sciences.
Dr. Silverstein’s research primarily focuses on ageing within the context of family life, emphasizing life course and international perspectives. He has published over 150 research articles and serves as the principal investigator of the Longitudinal Study of Generations. His research interests include intergenerational relationships, demographic and policy contexts of ageing, and the cultural dimensions of ageing.
About the other speakers and presentations
Dr. Anu Siren is a Professor of Gerontology at Tampere University. Her presentation focuses on informal intergenerational help provision over time and the factors influencing the observed change from 1997 to 2017 for adults aged 52–77. She presents findings from a study using longitudinal population-based data from Denmark and applying the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition technique to analyze trends in intergenerational help by older adults and to examine whether changes in helping behavior are attributed to active aging or other changes within the population.
Dr. Katariina Tuominen is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Tampere University. She has studied families and other close relationships of nonagenarians using qualitative life story interview data from the Vitality 90+ Study. In her presentation, she presents findings from a study using Foucauldian Discourse Analysis to examine the discursive construction of family and other close relationships in 54 life story interviews conducted with people aged 92–93 years.
Dr. Katja Repo is a University Lecturer, Tampere University, Finland. Her main research interests include the reconciliation of work and family, family policy, social services, cash-for-care schemes, intra-household finances, poverty, and time-use of families. In her presentation she discusses, how Finnish parents with school-aged children constructed their views of the family and family time at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic when Finnish society faced a lockdown. The focus is on parents in families who were not only facing the challenges brought about by the pandemic but also facing financial difficulties.
If you have any questions, please contact Katariina Tuominen (katariina.tuominen@tuni.fi).