Full Citation

Title: Intergenerational household structure and economic change at the turn of the twentieth century

Citation Type: Journal Article

Publication Year: 1998

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Abstract: Most older persons at the turn of the twentieth century in the United States lived with a child. Family theories stress kin affiliation or joint family survival strategies as motives for co-residence. This article uses exchange theory to examine whether hierarchical and non-collectivist "elder strategies" shaped coresidence. Analysis of the 1910 Public Use Sample and linked macrolevel census data finds that the coresidence of elderly males with adult children was a function of local economic opportunities, old-age dependency, economic resources (including Civil War pensions), and remarriage alternatives. Specifically, local economic opportunities led to more coresidence, but remarriage, older men's robustness, and greater material resources led to less coresidence with a child. Older men, as those in previous cohorts, held onto the resources they possessedincluding headship for their own use and perhaps to maintain leverage over kin.

User Submitted?: No

Authors: Elman, Cheryl

Periodical (Full): Journal of Family History

Issue: 4

Volume: 23

Pages: 417-440

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Family and Marriage, Housing and Segregation

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