LATER LIFE PARENTAL DIVORCE AND WIDOWHOOD - IMPACT ON YOUNG-ADULTS ASSESSMENT OF PARENT-CHILD RELATIONS

The implications of later life parental divorce and widowhood for relations between parents and young adult children are explored in a sample of 3,281 young adults who grew up in intact families. Family disruption that occurred after children were grown had sizable effects on parent-adult child relations. Later life parental divorce lowered relationship quality and contact between adult children and parents. The effects were stronger for father-child than for mother-child relations, and stronger for father-daughter than for father-son relations. Widowhood had negative effects on father-child but not on mother-child relations. Effects of later life marital dissolution on help exchange and financial assistance differed by sex of child and parent. Divorce disrupted parent-son Death of the same-sex parent had stronger effects on parent-child support exchange than did death of the opposite-sex parent.