Children’s sense of what they owe aging parents varies across Europe

From an article by the Institute of Family Studies

Using data from the most recent waves of the European Values Survey (EVS) and World Values Survey (WVS) - which are conducted every nine and five years respectively, Twitter user @albanianstats created a map illustrating the percentage of each European country’s adults who agreed with the statement, "Adult children have the duty to provide long-term care for their parents.” The numbers swing wildly across the continent.

Picking some of the countries out, on the list in descending order are:

While the Biblical dictate to honour one’s mother and father broadly informs Europe’s cultural heritage, the guide to that belief isn’t strictly linked to most countries’ current religiosity.

Consider Georgia, the country that tops the list. Pew Research describes 50% of adults in traditionally Orthodox Georgia as “highly religious.” This is fairly high in a contemporary European context, though Georgians rank behind Romania at 55% and Armenia at 51%, in that regard. In the Netherlands, by contrast, Pew reports that only 18% of adults are “highly religious.”

In between those two extremes is the rest of Europe. 

There is clearly variety across Europe’s national borders. So, what explains the divide? @albanianstats, posited:

1. A higher percentage correlates with a higher emphasis on family and traditional values. Countries with the lower values tend to be more individualistic in nature, and children there become independent of the family household earlier in life.
2. It is also related to the performance of healthcare institutions, or at least, to how much people trust those institutions. People in the countries with lower values generally trust the system to do the work.        

Professor Christian Smith, Professor of Sociology at the University of Notre Dame, suggested that the answer is a complicated mix of:

1. historical religious tradition (not attendance),
2. how well developed the welfare state is (thus reducing the need for care from children), and
3. a generally traditionalist, familial cultural tradition operating somewhat independently of the first two factors.

Looking ahead, it will be interesting to see if these trends persist. Culture and religious heritage are powerful forces, but economic headwinds in countries where fewer grown children are responsible for more elderly relatives could prove more powerful still. As populations age and shrink, governments will face increasingly difficult choices about public spending. It is entirely possible that many more European adults will care for their aging parents in the years ahead as that becomes the best option for families.

Read the full article here.


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