The Availability of Care for Late-Middle-Aged Adults With Chronic ...

Gender Differences

Though women are entering the workforce at increasingly steady rates, and dual-earner families are common, women are still considered the primary caregivers to family members in need (Collins, Schoen, & Joseph, 1999). Men do assume the role of caregiver, but they do so less frequently than women. Sons, for instance, are more likely to provide care to elderly parents when there are no daughters available. Men also provide fewer hours of care overall, and less intense care than women (Horowitz, 1985; Neal, Ingersoll-Dayton, & Starrels, 1997; Stoller, 1990). Male caregivers are more likely to provide assistance with less personal IADL tasks than with ADLs (Stoller). Compared with men, women are less likely to name their spouse as their primary caregiver and more likely to rely on others to supplement their husband’s help (Allen, Goldscheider, & Ciambrone, 1999; Allen, 1994).

Cultural Differences

Cultural differences, specifically racial and ethnic differences, in social networks have been widely documented—but due to limitations in sample sizes and analytic methodology, they have not always shown consistent results. Despite the notion that Blacks in particular benefit from a wider social network by incorporating fictive kin (i.e., individuals not related by blood or marriage but still considered family; Cantor, Brennan, & Sainz, 1994; Stewart, 2007), Black and Hispanic social networks tend to be smaller than those of Whites (Ajrouch et al., 2001; Roschelle, 1997). Strength of ties between family members also differ. While Whites showed the strongest bonds between parent and child, a study of individuals 85 and older found that Blacks placed greater emphasis on the bonds between siblings than did Whites (Johnson, 2000).