Nearness of Adult Children: Long-term Trends and Sociodemographic Patterns in Sweden

Abstract Support from adult children is vital for the wellbeing of many older adults and geographic nearness of children can be crucial for managing activities in daily life, even in countries with a universal welfare model and especially in the current times of refamilization of care and support. Hence, trends of convergence and divergence in intergenerational distances will influence the possibilities to receive informal assistance. Based on Swedish register data, we examined the proximity to the nearest adult child for the period 1990 to 2019, for parents at age 65 and 80 across socioeconomic groups, genders, and region types, using multivariate analyses. Although we found a slight overall trend towards divergence for parents aged 65 over the three decades, we do not interpret this as a constant long-term trend, but rather as part of short-term variations across cohorts, with longer distances for the baby-boom generation born in the 1940s. We found longer distances for fathers, singles, high-income individuals, the well-educated and in rural regions. And we found trends towards longer distances in rural regions and among parents with only primary education. Although more than 80% of parents have adult children within daily reach, many older parents have their children far away. When adding the childless, we conclude that almost a third of people aged 80 have no adult child within daily reach, which is a challenge as population ages. The results are discussed in relation to the changing role of family members for care and support.