Frail parents and adult children’s life-satisfaction: A longitudinal analysis of Norwegian data

Research shows that adult children's caregiving for older parents is associated with a decline in life satisfaction. However, other research indicates that emotional stress in adult children might be related to the declining health and frailty of their older parents rather than caregiving per se. Hence, there is a possibility that the first set of findings (declining life satisfaction when giving care) is causally spurious, reflecting factors not specified in statistical models rather than the care provided by adult children. This study tests this hypothesis by investigating changes in life satisfaction among 3,094 adult children from panel data in Norway that includes multiple indicators of health and care needs in older parents, together with data on who is providing care. Declining life satisfaction was observed among daughters but not among sons, and these changes were driven by the frailty and care needs of their parents rather than caregiving per se. The findings indicate that it is not caregiving that affects life satisfaction but the circumstances leading to caregiving. In these situations, adult daughters may struggle with sources of distress beyond providing support and care. Further research should investigate these relationships in countries with different distributions of care between families and public care institutions.