Revista de Asistenţ\ Social\, anul XIII, nr. 4/2014, pp.

27‑42
www.swreview.ro

Intergenerational Solidarity
in Co‑Residential Living Arrangements
Mihaela Hărăguş*

Abstract. We investigate different forms of intergenerational solidarity between parents

and their adult children, with a focus on situations when parents and their adult children
live together in the same house. Co‑residence is a form of functional solidarity (providing
a living space), and a form of structural solidarity in the same time (a context that
facilitates other intergenerational exchanges). Adopting the adult child’s perspective, we
first study different forms of co‑residential living arrangements (the child has never left
parental home, the child had left and later returned, and the parents have moved with
the adult child in his/her home), and find that adult children benefit from this form of
functional solidarity more often than elderly parents. Second, we study forms of upward
and downward support that take place in co‑residential living arrangements, such as
personal care, emotional support, help with household tasks and childcare, and factors
that may influence them. We adopt a theoretical model that accounts for adult child’s
and parents’ opportunity and needs structures, as well as for family structure. We find
that parents’ old age and inability to perform daily activities trigger personal care from
children, but except this case, parents are the ones who offer support to co‑resident
children, mainly in form of help with the household tasks and childcare, responding to
adult children’s needs: time demanding jobs or the absence of the spouse.

Keywords: intergenerational solidarity, types of support, co‑residence, Generations and

Gender Survey

Introduction
Romanians place a much more important role on the family than on the society for the
support of the vulnerable categories. Around 90% of people consider that is mainly family’s
responsibility to care for (pre‑)school children, while two thirds consider that caring for
elderly is also its responsibility, according to the report of the Generations and Gender Survey
(2007). The report from the Population Policy Acceptance survey (2006) also shows a strong
reliance of Romanians on family’s support, both downward (from parents to children) and
upward (from children to parents). This holds for grandparents taking care for grandchildren,
for parents offering financial help to their adult children or even for parents adapting their
own lives to help their children, if they need it. Similarly, adult children should take

* Babeş‑Bolyai University, Centre for Population Studies, 68 Avram Iancu st., 0264‑599613,
E‑mail: mihaela.haragus@ubbcluj.ro
28 Mihaela Hărăguş / Intergenerational Solidarity in Co‑Residential Living Arrangements

responsibility for care of elderly parents when they are in need or even to take the parents
to live with them when they can’t take care of themselves.
In connection with the strong intergenerational relations, the issue of co‑residence is
brought into discussion, i.e. adults living together with their parents. This living arrangement
is considered a form of support in itself: providing a living space, or a context that facilitates
other intergenerational exchanges. Co‑residence is a form of intergenerational support mainly
for young people, who remain longer in the parental home, until they find the resources to
move to an independent dwelling. According to a report on youth in Europe (Eurostat, 2009),
high proportions of youngsters aged 15‑30 in Romania quote constraints as the main reason
to remain longer in the parental home: 40% generally cannot afford to move out, 37%
answer that there are not enough affordable housing available. Population Policy Acceptance
(2006) report show that in the Eastern European transition states people consider financial
assistance and an improvement in the housing situation as more important policy desired
measures than family‑work reconciliation‑orientated measures. On behalf of the elderly,
co‑residence has been shown to be a very important mechanism of social protection, with
an important poverty alleviation role (Lyberaki, Tinios, 2005).
In the present paper we investigate the intergenerational co‑residence as a form of support
(providing a living space) and as a context that facilitates intergenerational exchanges. We
adopt the adult children’s perspective and investigate the forms of co‑residence (who moved
with whom) and the forms of intergenerational support exchanged in such living arrangements.
We also analyse the factors that predict the giving or receiving of different types of support,
in terms of children’s and parents’ needs and opportunities, as well as family structure.

Forms of intergenerational solidarity and factors that influence it

Intergenerational solidarity between children and parents refers to the „intergenerational
cohesion after children reach adulthood and establish careers and families of their own”
(Bengston, Roberts, 1991, 896). The model elaborated further contains six dimensions of
intergenerational solidarity, five of which refer to behavioural, affective and cognitive
orientation of parents and children toward one another, while the sixth refers to the opportunities
for family interactions, as presented in the following table:

Table 1. Dimensions of intergenerational solidarity

Dimensions Characteristics
Associational Frequency and patterns of interaction in various types of activities in
solidarity which family members engage
Affectual solidarity Type and degree of positive sentiments held about family members, and
the degree of reciprocity of these sentiments
Consensual solidarity Degree of agreement on values, attitudes and beliefs among family
members
Functional solidarity Degree of helping and exchange of resources
Normative solidarity Strength of commitment to performance of familial roles and to
meeting familial obligations (familialism)
Structural solidarity Opportunity structure for intergenerational relationships, reflected in
number, type and proximity of family members
Source: Bengston and Roberts 1991, 857
 Revista de Asisten]\ Social\, nr. 4/2014 29

These dimensions have been extensively used in empirical research of intergenerational

relations, in varying combinations or separately. Szydlik (2008) discuss three dimensions of
solidarity: associational (common activities), affectual (emotional attitudes such as the
emotional closeness of the relation), and functional (support and the giving and taking of
money, time and space).
Beyond the taxonomy of intergenerational solidarity, authors proposed different theoretical
models, with the goal of explaining more or less pronounced intergenerational solidarity.
Szydlik (2008) proposed a model with four conditional factors for solidarity, namely opportunity,
need, family and contextual‑cultural structures, with three levels of analysis: individual,
family and society. Intergenerational relations involve the parent and the child, both with
opportunities and need structure; this relationship is embedded in a family and in a societal
context. Opportunity structures refer to opportunities or resources for intergenerational
solidarity, such as residential proximity of family members, occupational status (availability
of time to offer support), economic status (availability of financial resources). Needs
structures indicate the need for intergenerational solidarity, which can be a result of health,
financial or emotional problems. At the family level, the history of events (such as divorce)
may shape the intergenerational solidarity, as well as the family composition (the number of
siblings) or family norms. Cultural‑contextual structures refer to the societal conditions
within which intergenerational relations take place, such as economic and tax system, welfare
state, the labour and housing market.
Albertini, Kholi and Vogel (2007) proposed a theoretical model that distinguishes between
three sets of factors affecting intergenerational solidarity: structural, institutional, cultural,
each of them acting at micro level (family, dyads and individuals) and macro level (above
family). At micro level, structural factors (opportunity structure for intergenerational relations)
refer to family and household composition, educational and occupational status of children
and parents, income and wealth status; institutional factors refer to marriage/cohabitation
arrangements and household division of labour; and cultural factors refer to values, beliefs,
attitudes and cultural practices of families, parents and children.
For cross‑country comparisons of intergenerational solidarity, macro level factors must
be taken into account. Macro level structural factors include demographic structure of family
and households, labour force structure and income and wealth distribution. Fewer children
may translate into lower levels of upward support, from children to parents, and in high
income countries adult children may outsource parental care. Macro level institutional factors
include legal obligations of intergenerational support, gift and inheritance taxation and family
and social security policies. Intergenerational care is more prevalent in southern and central
European countries, where children are legally obligated to support parents in need (Haberkern,
Szydlik, 2010). It is more prevalent also in countries where the state takes less responsibility
towards its citizens (Isengard, Szydlik, 2012). Macro level cultural factors include religious
traditions, family and gender values, age and generation values. Religion is one of the main
sources of expressed moral obligations, since the religious doctrines prescribe the appropriate
behavior between parents and children, emphasizes helping behavior and inculcate collectivistic
values that insist on helping those in need (Gans, Silverstein, Lowerstein, 2009).

Co‑residence
All three theoretical models presented (Bengtson, Roberts, 1991, Szydlik, 2008, Albertini
et al., 2007) emphasized the importance of the opportunity structure for intergenerational
transfers, referring to it as structural intergenerational solidarity, with geographic proximity
30 Mihaela Hărăguş / Intergenerational Solidarity in Co‑Residential Living Arrangements

of parents and children as a key element. Intergenerational co‑residence, i.e. parents and
adult children living in the same household, can be seen as structural intergenerational
solidarity in its ultimate form (Dykstra, van den Broek, Muresan, Haragus, Haragus,
Abramowska‑Kmon, Kotowska, 2013). Sharing the same household offers more opportunities
for support that any other living arrangement. Besides facilitating intergenerational exchanges,
co‑residence is a form of functional solidarity on its own: the living space is the resource
that is exchanged by parents and children (Ogg, Renaut 2006, Brandt, Haberkern, Szydlik
2009, Isengard, Szydlik 2012, Dykstra et al. 2013). Co‑residence is seen even as the main
form of intergenerational support in Southern Europe (Albertini, Kohli, Vogel, 2007, Jappens,
Van Bavel, 2012).

Co‑residence as a form of functional solidarity

When authors approach intergenerational co‑residence in eastern Europe and try to offer an
explanation for higher proportions of shared households compared with western Europe,
they refer to two elements: a historical pattern of family formation with high incidence of
extended/multigenerational households (De Jong Gierveld, De Valk, Blommesteijn, 2002,
De Jong Gierveld, Dykstra, Schenk, 2012), on the one hand, and the housing situation
(availability and affordability) on the other hand (De Jong Gierveld, De Valk, Blommesteijn,
2002, Robila, 2004, De Jong Gierveld, Dykstra, Schenk, 2012).
Scholars who took a closer look at the household and family contexts in the Balkans
show, in terms of traditional household formation patterns, that the neolocal system, based
on nuclear and stem families, was dominant in Romanian territories (Kaser 1996, 2009).
Kaser (2009, 256) considers that the system worked like a stem family, though with equally
partible inheritance, which means that at the time of marriage the sons received their equal
shares of land, and left the parents’ house in order to established separate residences. The
youngest (rarely the oldest) son remained with his parents.
During the communist regime in Romania it was the state’s concern to ensure the housing
stock, which was the state’s property. Organised in this way, the system of dwelling allocation
during that period encouraged neolocal residential patterns for the young people (Castiglioni,
Hărăguş, Faludi, Hărăguş, unpublished manuscript).
The change of the political regime in 1989 brought new challenges for young people wanting
to establish an independent household. As one of the first measures in 1990 in Romania, the
housing stock was sold to the population, so the great majority of Romanians became owners.
Not only the rhythm of construction of new dwellings, but also the share of constructions from
public funds sharply decreased in the post‑communist period. At present, the public funded
housing stock accounts for 2% of all housing (Dan, 2009). This was doubled by the sharp
decrease in the purchasing power of population during the transition period and a spectacular
increase in housing prices, leading to a housing crisis (Dan, 1996, 2009). The youth was
especially negatively affected. Although programs of housing constructions for youth have
been developed, their results go far behind the needs of population.
Given the housing situations and the difficulties for young people/couples to achieve an
independent dwelling, we expect to find for our data that the greatest share of adult children
in intergenerational co‑residential living arrangements have always been living in their
parents’ house and only a small proportion to be in the situation when they took their (frail)
parents to live with them. In other words, adult children are the beneficiaries of this form
of functional solidarity.
 Revista de Asisten]\ Social\, nr. 4/2014 31

Co‑residence as structural solidarity: intergenerational support in

co‑residential living arrangements
Results of different studies from Europe and USA about intergenerational transfers show
that the direction of these transfers are mostly downward, from the older to the younger
generations, both in case of financial transfers and social support, and more frequent and
more intense than those from children to parents (Kholi, 2004, Albertini et al., 2007).
Mulder and van der Meer (2009) link the support offered by parents to their adult children
with the stronger feelings of affection and obligation that parents have towards children than
the other way around.
Many studies focus on living arrangements of the elderly and approach co‑residence from
their perspective, guided by the assumption that co‑residence is a living arrangement
determined by their needs. In other words, co‑residence is seen as a form of support for the
elderly (Kalmijn, 2006, Ogg, Renaut, 2006). Treas and Cohen (2007) show that co‑residence
reduces the loneliness of the elderly and it is also a strategy for them to cope with poverty
in late life, while Lyberaki and Tynios (2005) consider that co‑residence with children is
probably the oldest mechanism of social protection for old age.
Other studies show that co‑residence is triggered mainly by adult children’s needs: only
looking at the share of adult children that have always lived with their parents vs. those
whose parents moved in with them one can see that co‑residence is a response to adult
children’s needs (Crimmins, Ingegneri, 1990). Beyond the fact that co‑residence with parents
is a form of functional support for the adult children (a place where to live), the flow of
support inside co‑residential living arrangements is downwards, from parents to children.
Ward et al. (1992) show that parents performed a higher share of domestic tasks than children
in shared households and a higher amount of tasks than parents who did not live with their
adult children. Moreover, the number and share of household tasks did not decrease
substantially with the parents’ age, indicating that parents remain rather providers than
receivers of support even in older ages. De Jong Gierveld and collaborators (2012) develop
a typology of intergenerational support and find that in co‑residential households in eastern
Europe (Russia, Bulgaria and Georgia) the most frequent type of support is a high likelihood
of practical help to both resident and non‑resident children together with a moderate
likelihood of weekly get‑togethers. This result make the authors to conclude that it is clear
that when older adults live with their adult children in the same household in eastern Europe,
they are more likely to be providers of support for their children than receivers. They also
found greater likelihoods for the elderly to be involved in downward than in upward transfers
for elderly not living together with their children, both in eastern and western European
countries (De Jong Gierveld et al., 2012).
Our approach of intergenerational co‑residence starts from the assumption that adult
children are the beneficiaries of this structural solidarity. We study the flows of support
(functional solidarity) between adult children and their parents in situations of co‑residence,
from the adult children’s perspective. We expect the downwards support, from parents to
children, to be offered more often than the upwards support, from children to parents, for
all types of intergenerational support taken into account (personal care, emotional and help
with household tasks).
We also want to investigate what factors influence the functional solidarity in intergenerational
co‑residential households. Adopting the theoretical model proposed by Szydlik (2008), we
address factors at individual and family level: opportunity and need structures of parents
and adult children, as well as family structure.
Inside functional solidarity, help and care are seen as two different types of support.
Care is frequently a necessity, determined by the needs of the recipient (health problems,
32 Mihaela Hărăguş / Intergenerational Solidarity in Co‑Residential Living Arrangements

inability to perform daily basic activities), while help services are performed on a more
voluntary basis, more sporadically, when one has the opportunity (Brandt, Haberkern,
Szydlik, 2009). Care is usually provided by adult children to parents, when they are in poor
health, very old and/or without a partner alive. Having a partner alive is important to elderly
persons especially for their emotional wellbeing: De Jong Gierveld, Dykstra, Schenk (2012)
show that living with adult children provides some protection against loneliness, but not to
the same degree as having a partner relationship.
Whether children provide support for their parents depend more on children’s opportunity
structure, such as the time they have available, the cost for foregone alternatives (high income,
high level of education) (Brandt, Haberkern, Szydlik, 2009). We expect the parents’ health
problems and lack of a partner to increase the upward care, as well as emotional support,
while no economic activity from behalf of the child to offer enough time (opportunity) to
provide more support for the parents than working children. We also expect higher educated
adult children to provide less support to their co‑resident parents than lower educated ones.
Whether the adult child have never left the parental home or he/she left and later has
returned or the parents moved in with the child is an indicator of the child’s need for a living
space. In the spirit of reciprocity, we might expect that adult children living in parents’ house
offer support to their parents in a greater extent than those who took parents to live with
them. On the other hand, elderly who moved in with their children are the most in need for
help and care, the move into the child’s home being most probably triggered by illness or
inability to perform daily activities. We expect upward care to be more spread when parent(s)
and child live together in the child’s home. Given the results of previous studies about the
flows of intergenerational support and the fact that parents who moved into the child’s home
are most probably ill or very old, we expect the downward help to be more prevalent when
adult children and parents live together into the parents’ house.
As Szydlik (2008) argued in his model, individual factors are embedded in family
structures. When there are more siblings living in the same household with the parent, the
probability of upward help decreases, since it can be shared. Having their own children may
lower the level of support given to the parents, because they represent competing obligations
(Brandt, Haberkern and Szydlik, 2009). On the other hand, children of the adult child may
increase the need for support and therefore the help offered by elderly parents.
Gender differences in giving and receiving intergenerational help and care are also
documented in the literature: daughters help their parents more than sons, and elderly
mothers receive more support than elderly fathers (Silverstein, Gans, Yang, 2006). The
quality of the relation may explain this, since the mother‑daughter tie is stronger than other
parent‑child relationship (Eggebeen, 2002), or the socialization of daughters to caregiving
roles (Rossi and Rossi, 1990). The less support received by fathers may be linked to the
more peripheral involvement of fathers in family life (and even their disappearance because
of divorce and remarriage), which may hinder their opportunities for receiving intergenerational
support in old age (Silverstein, Gans, Yang, 2006). In addition, women live longer (alone)
and make use of help and care more than men (Brandt, Haberkern, Szydlik, 2009). In
accordance with these results, we expect women to show higher likelihood of upward and
downward support, at the same time.
Researchers found that the level of support received from parents does not remain constant
across adulthood. Cooney and Uhlenberg (1992) found a decline over the life course, with
the most visible in the early 40s, but the decline is not linear, nor continuous. The authors
found that the decline in parental support cannot be explained by changes in the child’s
involvement in work, school or family roles, while parental life course characteristics have
a more visible effect on age patterns of support. A more recent research (Hartnett et al.,
 Revista de Asisten]\ Social\, nr. 4/2014 33

2012) identifies three mediators for the effect of child’s age on parent‑to‑child financial
transfers: offspring need (fewer needs across the life course and consequently request for
less support), acquiring adult identity (role transitions across the life course and specific
norms associated) and proximity and affinity (decrease in geographical proximity and
emotional closeness over the child’s life course). Hartnett and collaborators (2012) agree
that also a direct effect of age on support exists, related to age norms. Moreover, as the
offspring goes older, so does the parents and consequently their possibility to support their
children decline, while their needs for support from children increase and the balance of
intergenerational support exchange may be reversed. Nevertheless, the results of Albertini
et al., 2007 on SHARE data do not support the assumption of a reversal of the direction of
support with increasing age. Instead, they show that the net downward flow goes from parents
to their children across all age groups and countries.
We expect that flows of downward support (from parents to children) to decrease in
intensity with the child’s age, while the flows of upward support (from children to parents)
to increase with child’s age (and consequently parents’ age), for all types of support taken
into consideration.

Data and method

We use for our investigation the Generations and Gender Survey data for Romania, conducted
in 2005, as part of the international Generations and Gender Programme. The original sample
consist of 11986 respondents (5977 men and 6009 women) aged 18‑79 years.
The questionnaire comprised an extensive section about intergenerational relations and
the types of solidarity between parents and children (Vikat et al., 2007). The rich data of
the GGS allow us to distinguish between several types of upward or downward intergenerational
support: personal care (regular help with personal care such as eating, getting up, dressing,
bathing, or using toilets), emotional support (talking about personal experiences and feelings),
help with household tasks (cooking, washing, cleaning etc.), and help with childcare. Given
the specific of intergenerational co‑residence, which is in the same time a form of functional
and structural solidarity, and to the prevalence of this living arrangement in Romania, we
investigate the types of intergenerational exchange that take place when adult children and
parents live together in the same home, adopting the adult child’s perspective. For the look
at the co‑residential situation of adult children we selected from the original sample persons
with at least one parent alive (for kin availability), which left us with 6674 respondents. For
the investigation of the intergenerational support in co‑residential living arrangement, we
selected only persons who live in the same household with at least one parent. We have 1616
respondents left in the working sample.
We use binary logistic regression models to investigate how different characteristics of
adult children or of parents predict different types of support. This is a type of regression
used to identify the strength of independent factors on a dichotomist dependent variable that
represents the occurrence or non‑occurrence of a particular behaviour (the exchange of
different intergenerational support, in our case). The logistic regression applies the maximum
likelihood estimation and reflects the odds that the observed values of the dependent variable
to be predicted from the observed values of the independent variables. All independent
variables that we use are categorical. The results are given in the form of relative odds ratios.
The relative odds ratio for a predictor is the relative amount by which the chance that the
event of interest to appear increases (relative odds ratio greater than 1) or decreases (relative
odds ratio smaller than 1) when the value of the predictor increases by one unit. When we
34 Mihaela Hărăguş / Intergenerational Solidarity in Co‑Residential Living Arrangements

use categorical independent variables, we refer to a reference category: an odds ratio greater
than 1 means that the chance that the behaviour of interest to appear is greater than for the
reference category of the respective variable. Similarly, an odds ratio smaller than 1 means
that the chance that the behaviour of interest to appear is smaller than for the reference
category of that variable.
For choosing the independent variables we adopt the theoretical model proposed by Szydlik
(2008) and use indicators for opportunity, need and family structures. We consider activity
status (employed vs. non working) and education level (low, medium and high) of the adult
children as indicators of their opportunity structure, and the type of co‑residence as indicator
of their needs structure. If they have never left parental home or left and later have returned
indicate they needed a living space. If they took the elderly parents to live with them may
indicate parents’ needs (for care, for companionship). We use other two indicators for parents’
needs: whether they are limited in their ability to carry out normal everyday activities because
of a physical or mental health problem or a disability, and whether they have a living partner.
Marital status of the children and whether they have their own children aged 0‑14 in the
household are indicators of family structure. We also use age and gender of the child.

Results
Descriptive
In Romania, 24.2% of those with at least one parent alive share a household with their
parent(s). Of those co‑residing with parents, the highest proportions are persons who have
always been living with their parents (Figure1). Comparing figures for adult children living
in parents’ household (considering co‑residence a support form for the young) with figures
for adult children whose parents moved in with them (considering co‑residence a support
form for the elderly), one can say that co‑residence is clearly a form of downward functional
solidarity, a response to adult children’s needs.

Source: Generations and Gender Survey, author’s calculations

Figure 1. Distribution of adult children by co‑residential situation

 Revista de Asisten]\ Social\, nr. 4/2014 35

A look at the characteristics of persons in different co‑residential situations (Figure 2)

gives us more clues about this form of functional solidarity. Clearly, most persons that have
never left parental home are young, on the background of a prolonged stay in parental home.
Scholars connect the longer stay in the parental home, specific to southern and eastern
European countries, with the high levels of unemployment and low wages for young people,
coupled with scarce opportunities for affordable housing (Aasve et al., 2007, Iacovou, 2001).
Most of the moves from parental homes to independent dwellings in Romania are
connected with the moment of marriage (Muresan, 2007, 2012) and consequently, highest
proportions of those that have never left parental home did not married (yet), for all age
groups. In case of the oldest respondents (aged 50 plus), 27.3% of them haven’t got married
during their life and still live with their parent(s). Married persons that still live with their
parents are the fewest, while divorced respondents have returned to their parents’ home in
the greatest proportions.
The situation of never having left parental home is specific for young and unmarried
persons, the return into parental home is associated with the divorce, and taking the parents
into children’s home is associated with divorce and old age (of the child and consequently
of the parent).

Source: Generations and Gender Survey, author’s calculations

Figure 2. Distribution of adult children by co‑residential situation, age group and marital status

Now we look at different types of intergenerational support exchange that take place in
households where adult children and their parents live together (Table 2).
Personal care is the least spread form of support, being triggered by the recipient’s illness. Very
few respondents (adult children) benefit from this form of support from their parents; personal
care is mainly a form of upward support. Adults offer emotional support in a greater extent than
personal care, but receive the same kind of support from their parents more than they offer.
36 Mihaela Hărăguş / Intergenerational Solidarity in Co‑Residential Living Arrangements

The adult children’s perspective allows us to see the parents’ involvement in the
household tasks and childcare. Most of the parents help their co‑resident adult children
with daily meals preparation (65.7%) and with the dishes (59.2%). Considering the
parents’ help with any task, three quarters help their co‑resident children with household
chores. Parents’ involvement in their grandchildren’s care is less prevalent; (grand)parents
become a resource mainly when the children are ill and somebody must stay home with
them when parents are at work.

Table 2. Share of adult children giving and receiving support in co‑residential households

Upward support (from adult children to parents)

Help with personal care 3.8%
Emotional support 15.5%
Downward support (from parents to adult children)
Help with personal care 0.6%
Emotional support 26%
a
Help with household tasks :
Preparing daily meals 65.7%
Doing the dishes 59.2%
Shopping for food 48.7%
Vacuum‑cleaning the house 35.0%1

Small repairs 39.0%

Paying bills, finance 51.4%
Organizing joint activities 23.5%
Any household task 74.4%

Help with childcare (when there is at least one child aged 0‑14 years in the household)a
Dressing 8.5%
Putting to bed 7.1%
Illness 11.2%
Leisure activities 8.0%
Homework preparations 1.3%
Transport 10.3%
Any childcare task 20.1%

Note: a Percentage of persons saying that mother or father always or usually performs this task.
Source: Generations and Gender Survey, author’s calculations
 Revista de Asisten]\ Social\, nr. 4/2014 37

Multivariate analysis
Now we turn our attention to the factors that influence the giving of intergenerational support
such as personal care, emotional support, help with the household tasks and childcare (Table 3).
We didn’t construct a model for personal care from parents to children because only 11
respondents reported to have received this form of support.
As expected, personal care is a form of intergenerational support triggered by parents’
needs: old age (oldest respondents have the highest odds to offer this form of intergenerational
support, to their oldest parents), limited ability to carry out normal everyday activities,
absence of a living partner, and movement into the child’s house. Caring for an old and ill
parent needs time resources from behalf of the child: adult children that do not work show
the highest odds to offer personal care to their co‑resident parents.
Unlike the model for personal care, very few factors show statistical significant effects
in case of upward emotional support. Being a woman increase the chances to offer emotional
support, as well as medium education, compared with low educated persons. Whether the
respondents receive emotional support from their parents is influenced by more factors:
being a woman, having returned into parents’ house and medium education increase the
chances, while higher age and having only the father alive decrease the chances of receiving.
Return into parents’ home happens usually after a divorce or death of the spouse, so the
respondents need more emotional support. Gender, both of the child and of the parents,
plays an important role in the exchange of emotional support: women receive and also give
more.
The younger the adult children, the higher the chances to receive help with household
chores. Compared with married persons, those not married have the highest chances to
receive help from their parents, but also divorced and widowed adult children have high odds
to be helped with domestic tasks. The common feature for them is the absence of a spouse
that might contribute to the household chores. When only one (co‑resident) parent is alive,
the chances of practical help received sharply decline, especially when only father is alive.
Women are those who provide practical help to their children. Respondents with medium
and higher education receive more help with the household chores than the low educated
ones, since they may have more time demanding jobs. The presence of grandchildren in the
household reduces the grandparent’ involvement in the domestic chores.

Table 3. Results of logistic regression models for adult children offering support to or
receiving support from parents

Covariates Standardized coefficients (B)

Frequency
Care Emotional Emotional Help with
upward upward downward household
tasks
(downward)
Age group Below 30 (ref) 887 1 1 1 1
(adult child) 30‑39 404 1,62 1,04 0,61*** 0,38***
40‑49 157 1,89 1,19 0,78 0,22***
50 plus 167 4,23** 0,99 0,46*** 0,12***
Marital Never married 1072 1,11 0,94 0,90 10,28***
status (adult Divorced 96 0,92 0,82 0,76 7,97***
child) Widow 28 1,12 0,66 0,60 6,42***
Married (ref) 419 1 1 1 1
38 Mihaela Hărăguş / Intergenerational Solidarity in Co‑Residential Living Arrangements

Parents’ Both limited 62 7,80*** 1,08 1,03 0,75

limited Mother limited 282 3,48*** 1,13 1,02 0,78
ability to Father limited 112 12,87*** 0,77 0,96 0,70
perform
everyday None limited 1159 1 1 1 1
activities (ref)
Parents’ aliveOnly mother 522 3,14** 1,13 0,88 0,63**
alive
Only father alive 99 2,28 0,75 0,34*** 0,17***
Both alive (ref) 994 1 1 1 1
Education Low (ref) 452 1  1  1  1 
(adult child) Medium 1011 1,05 1,66*** 1,36** 1,90***
High 152 1,33 1,38 1,28 2,67***
Co‑residence Never left (ref) 1317 1 1 1 1
situation Returned 195 1,01 1,33 1,48** 0,91
Took parents to 103 2,82*** 0,83 1,08 0,87
live with them
Gender Male 1083 0,64 0,61*** 0,54***
(adult child) Female (ref) 532 1 1 1
Children No (ref) 1392 1  1  1  1 
aged 0‑14 in Yes 223 0,54 1,22 0,99 0,39***
the
household
Employment Not working 633 2,21** 1,23 1,18 0,78
status (adult
child) Employed (ref) 982 1 1 1 1
Cox & Snell R Square 0,079 0,018 0,05 0,367
Nagelkerke R Square 0,289 0,031 0,074 0,54
Note: *** for p< 0.01, ** for p<0.05, * for p<0.1
Source: Generations and Gender Survey, author’s calculations

We now look at the 224 respondents that have a child aged 0‑14 in the household and at
the help they receive with the childcare (Table 4). Other situation than marriage means most
probably the absence of the other parent, which means higher need for help, translated in
higher chances of receiving support with childcare. When the adult child doesn’t work, he/
she may spend the time for childcare, with no need for extra help from the parents, whose
involvement is sharply reduced in this situation. As in the case of domestic chores, high
education of the respondent may mean a more time demanding job and consequently higher
odds of receiving help with childcare. Parents who moved in with the child have higher odds
to offer help with childcare.

Table 4. Results of logistic regression models for adult children receiving

support at childcare from parents

Covariates Frequency Standardized

coefficients (B)
Age group (adult child) Below 30 (ref) 94 1
Over 30 130 1,85
 Revista de Asisten]\ Social\, nr. 4/2014 39

Marital status (adult Married (ref) 147 1

child) Other situation 77 3,75**
Parents’ limited ability Both limited 7 0,74
to perform everyday Mother limited 35 1,54
activities Father limited 21 2,02
None limited (ref) 161 1
Parents’ alive Only mother alive 89 1,65
Only father alive 15 0,00
Both alive (ref) 120 1
Education (adult child) Low (ref) 74  1
Medium 140 1,60
High 10 6,87**
Co‑residence situation Never left (ref) 178 1
Returned 29 1,63
Took parents to live with 17 3,67*
them
Employment status Not working 53 0,08***
(adult child) Employed (ref) 171 1
Cox & Snell R Square 0,184
Nagelkerke R Square 0,291
Note: *** for p< 0.01, ** for p<0.05, * for p<0.1
Source: Generations and Gender Survey, author’s calculations

Conclusions
Considering co‑residence a form of functional solidarity, adult children benefit more than
elderly parents: highest share of co‑residential living arrangements take place into parents’
home, so children are given a place to live, and only a small share co‑reside into children’s
home, with elderly as beneficiaries. In case of the youngest respondents, high share of those
who never left is associated with the trend of prolonged stay into parental home, due to the
lack of financial resources and of affordable housing (Eurostat, 2009), making the parental
home to be a protective shelter against economic hardship. The same role is fulfilled by
parental home when the adult children confront with life events such as divorce or death of
the spouse, when they return to their parents. Only when the parents are very old, ill and
limited in the execution of daily activities they may move into the children’s home.
Besides a place to live, adult children benefit from co‑residence as structural solidarity,
receiving support from their parents when in need. Parents benefit from co‑residence as
functional solidarity when they are old and have limited abilities to perform daily activities:
they move into the child’s home and there receive personal care. Otherwise, they are the
ones who offer support to co‑resident children, mainly in form of help with the household
tasks and childcare, responding to adult children’s needs: time demanding jobs or the absence
of the spouse.
We are aware of some limitations of our study. First, the share of co‑residential living
arrangements in the sample is higher, if we think that respondents may report living together
with the spouse’s parents, cases that we did not consider in our analysis because the
characteristics of spouse’s parents were not registered in the survey. Second, we could not
investigate the flows of financial support because it was not registered in this case. Indeed,
40 Mihaela Hărăguş / Intergenerational Solidarity in Co‑Residential Living Arrangements

is much more difficult to tell who gives who money when children and parents live together
than when they live separately. Beyond these limitations, we consider that our study offers
an overview of intergenerational co‑residence and forms of support exchanged inside this
living arrangement, as well as an overview of the predictors of such forms of support, in
terms of children’s and parents’ opportunity and needs and family structure, which are
missing from the Romanian scientific literature.

Acknowledgements
This work was supported by a grant of the Romanian National Authority for Scientific
Research, CNCS‑UEFISCDI, project number PN‑II‑ID‑2011‑3‑0145.

Note
1. The mentioning of the vacuum cleaner in the text of the questionnaire item generated a high
number of missing values, due to the absence of the vacuum cleaner from many (mostly rural)
households. We believe that the parents’ involvement in cleaning the house is actually higher
than 35% (Hărăguş 2010).

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