Intergenerational Value Discordances and Affectual and Associational Solidarity Between Older Parents and Adult Children

Using data from the Longitudinal Study of Generations 2016, we tested three hypotheses: (1) discordances in three intergenerational values (religion, gender role attitudes, and political attitudes) between parents and adult children would be negatively related to their affectual and associational solidarity with each other, (2) discordances in three values would be more deleterious for children’s perceived solidarity with parents than vice versa, and (3) mother–daughter relations would be less affected by discordances in three values than other parent–child gender combinations. The overlapping sample was 157 mother–son, 180 mother–daughter, 124 father–son, and 113 father–daughter dyads. Results of structural equation modeling and multigroup analysis showed that religion discordance between fathers and daughters was associated with lower levels of daughters’ perceived affectual and associational solidarity with fathers. Furthermore, political attitudes differences between fathers and sons were associated with lower levels of sons’ perceived affectual and associational solidarity with fathers.