The International Journal of Aging and Human Development

This study investigates adult children's informal caregiving for, and living arrangements with, older parents in urban India. We differentiated between anticipated caregiving, for respondents whose parents and parents-in-law do not currently need care, and actual caregiving, for respondents who have at least one parent or parent-in-law with care needs. The results based on the 2011 Osaka University Preference Parameters Study reveal different antecedents of anticipated and actual care. Females have lower odds of anticipated care but there were no gender differences in actual caregiving. Married people have higher odds of anticipating financial assistance, but lower odds of providing actual caregiving. Religiosity is positively related to anticipated care and co-residing but not actual caregiving. Wealth increases the odds of anticipating providing housework as well as anticipated and actual financial assistance, while decreasing the odds of actual care. Given these findings, strengthening public pension and long-term care services is warranted.

Twenty-nine percent of adults in the U.S. care for children, and 12% to 24.3% of those adults are multigenerational caregivers who also provide unpaid care for one or more adults. These adults are considered members of the “sandwich generation,” which is a term for multigenerational caregivers who provide care, financial support, and emotional support for both their children and parents. The present study characterized the sandwich generation and examined how sandwich generation caregivers differed from caregivers of children, caregivers of parents, and non-caregivers regarding burnout and depression. We found that sandwich generation caregivers and caregivers of parents reported significantly higher levels of informal caregiving burnout than caregivers of children. Compared to non-caregivers, all caregivers reported significantly higher levels of personal burnout. Burnout is higher in sandwich generation caregivers and those who care for parents than burnout among those who care only for children. Future studies should investigate additional variables that affect burnout.

Providing care to a spouse can be especially challenging for older adults given their compounding stressors resulting from aging and caregiving. This cross-sectional study examines the relationships between caregiving stressors and caregiver mental health problems and the potential mediator (i.e., caregiving relationship quality) of these associations. A total of 431 Americans (≥65 years) were selected from the National Study of Caregiving. Path analysis shows that care assistance was positively associated with caregiver mental health problems, and this association was mediated by negative relationship quality (Indirect effect  =  .14, p  =  .016). Moreover, role overload was positively associated with caregiver mental health problems, which was mediated by negative relationship quality (indirect effect  =  .13, p  =  .002). Findings suggest that caregiving stressors can adversely affect mental health by exacerbating negative relationship quality. Interventions that limit negative exchanges and increase compassionate communications between older spousal caregivers and their care-receiving partners are needed.

Despite the fact that the literature suggests loneliness to undermine cognitive functioning in later life, no work has simultaneously examined the relationships between these constructs taking a multidimensional approach to the assessment of each. The present study explored relationships among social and emotional loneliness and both general crystallized (Gc) and general fluid (Gf) ability, as well as to several indices of everyday intellectual functioning in later life. Sequential regression analyses suggested that neither social nor emotional loneliness predicted Gc. However, only when eliminating health as a covariate was more social loneliness associated with lower scores for Gf. Surprisingly, more emotional loneliness was associated with higher scores for Gf. More social loneliness also predicted more everyday cognitive failures and with less positive lifestyle attitudes. These findings support a view of loneliness-cognition relationships in later life that reflects the multidimensional nature of each construct.

This study focuses on the concepts of subjective age and subjective nearness-to-death (views-of-aging) and examines the association between individuals’ chronological age, self, and others’ perceptions of these variables and mental health. A total of 267 participants aged 40–95 M = 64.33 provided sociodemographic information and filled out scales assessing self and others’ views-of-aging, depressive symptoms, and their well-being. After controlling for covariates, age was not related to the dependent variables, whereas young/far from death self, and perceived others’ views-of-aging was related to better mental health. The interaction between young age and young/far from death perceived others’, but not self, views-of-aging was associated with lower depressive symptoms and higher well-being. Finally, the interaction between young/far from death self and perceived others’ views-of-aging was associated with lower depressive symptoms but not with well-being. These findings provide an initial glance at the complex relations between two types of personal views-of-aging and emphasize the importance of how individuals appraise others’ perceptions of their own aging process and life expectancy.

This study investigates the psychometric properties of the Meaningful Activity Participation Assessment-Meaning (MAPA-M) scale using the Rasch measurement model. For the psychometric properties of MAPA-M, principal component analysis, Rasch analysis, and differential item functioning analysis were conducted. Participants in this study were 480 older adults from the USC Well Elderly 2 study, recruited from 21 locations in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. There were eight items with DIF, but they were accepted because they assumed unidimensionality and showed good person invariance. The 25 items assuming unidimensionality of MAPA-M had values between 0.6 and 1.4 in infit and Outfit MnSq, and all ZSTD values were less than 2.0. The 25 items demonstrated a conceptual item-difficulty hierarchy. The person strata value was 2.68, which is equivalent to a reliability index value of .76. The findings indicate that the revised scale can accurately and reliably measure meaningful activities by older adults.