Intergenerational relationships and aging: Families, cohorts, and social change

This chapter addresses issues in the continuing drama of intergenerational relationships, focusing on families, aging, and social change. It focuses on data concerning: the "American family decline" debate; solidarity and conflict within multigenerational families; and solidarity and conflict between age cohorts. Based on the discussion a model for research on multigenerational family relationships over time is developed, leading to a speculative forecasting of intergenerational relationships in the early twenty-first century. A. S. Rossi and P. H. Rossi have documented the extensiveness of intergenerational solidarity in their Boston-area study–providing a model for the complexities of "bonding" activities involving older and younger generational kin. M. Silverstein and V. L. Bengtson examine the long-term consequences of parent-child solidarity over time in the Longitudinal Study of Generations, and find that close ties enhance not only the psychological well-being but also the survival of aging parents.