Research Group on Aging and the Life Course (FALL)

Publications: Szydlik 1995

Szydlik, Marc (1995): Die Enge der Beziehung zwischen erwachsenen Kindern und ihren Eltern - und umgekehrt. In: Zeitschrift für Soziologie, 24, 75-94.

The closeness of the relation between adult children and their parents - and vice versa:
This article addresses two main questions: How close is the relation between adult children and their parents in Germany in general? And why are certain intergenerational relations closer than others? Theoretically, four groups of determinants are introduced: opportunity structures, need structures, family structures, and cultural-contextual structures. The empirical analyses, based on data from the German Socio-economic Panel, show, that most of the parents and most of the adult children indicate at least close intergenerational r elations. This applies even more to the parents than to the children. The closest relations are those between East German mothers and daughters, the least close those between West German sons and fathers. With regard to the four groups of determinants the analyses indicate that all of them are important. By means of descriptive analyses and ordered probit models, the theoretical hypotheses are partly supported, partly refuted and partly differentiated.

To the top of this page

Back to Articles 1995