Marital Status, Competing Demands, and Role Priorities of Parent-Caring Daughters

Abstract

This research compares the perceptions of 522 adult daughters in five marital status groups on the significance of marital status for parent caregiving. The married women considered support from husbands and children a great benefit for caregiving, but the price of such support is competition between the demands of caregiving and obligations to family. For the nonmarried women, not having such competing demands is considered an advantage, but the cost is having less social support. To further explore competition between parent care and commitments to self and family, a subsample of respondents ranked priorities in their lives. Married women ranked husbands and children as first priorities; never-married women ranked care of elders first. In the caregiving context, marital status affects strain, support, and the evaluation of role priorities.