Greedy Spouse, Needy Parent: The Marital Dynamics of Gay, Lesbian, and Heterosexual Intergenerational Caregivers

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12318
• Author: Debra Umberson,Corinne Reczek
• Published date: 01 August 2016
• Date: 01 August 2016

C R Ohio State University

D U University of Texas at Austin∗

Greedy Spouse, Needy Parent: The Marital

Dynamics of Gay, Lesbian, and Heterosexual

Intergenerational Caregivers

It is well established that married heterosexual

women do more intergenerational caregiving

for aging parents and parents-in-law than

married heterosexual men do. However, gay

men and lesbian women’s recent access to

marriage presents new questions about the

gendered marital dynamics of intergenera-

tional caregiving. We use dyadic data with gay,

lesbian, and heterosexual spouses to exam-

ine the marital dynamics of intergenerational

caregivers. Results show that gay and lesbian

spouses provided intensive time and emotional

support for an intergenerational caregiver.

In contrast, heterosexual women described

their intergenerational caregiving as rarely

supported and at times even undermined by

their spouse. Dyadic data on heterosexual men

corroborate women’s accounts; heterosexual

men rarely reported providing intergenerational

caregiving, and thus heterosexual women rarely

described providing spousal support. These

Department of Sociology, Ohio State University, 164

TownshendHall, 1885 Neil Avenue Mall, Columbus, OH

43210 (reczek.2@osu.edu).

∗Department of Sociology, Universityof Texas at Austin, 1

University Station A1700, Austin, TX 78712–1088.

This article was edited by Linda Waite.

Key Words: gay, lesbian, and heterosexual spouses, gender

intergenerational caregiving,marital dynamics.

ndings provide new insight into the intermin-

gled roles of “greedy” marriages and “needy”

parents, wherein marital negotiations around

caregiving vary by gender for gay, lesbian, and

heterosexual marital dyads.

Adult children undertake nearly half of the daily

caregiving labor performed for aging adults

(Pinquart & Sörensen, 2011; Seltzer & Bianchi,

2013; Swartz, 2009). Although parental caregiv-

ing can be rewarding, it is also highly stressful

and time consuming, with adverse consequences

for adult children’s physical and psychological

well-being. This is especially true for women,

who perform almost 80% of parental caregiving

and almost 90% of in-law caregiving (Kahn,

McGill, & Bianchi, 2011; Marks, Lambert, &

Choi, 2002; Matthews, 1995; Pillemer & Suitor,

2014). Notably, previous studies suggest that

the majority (about 65%) of parental caregivers

are married (heterosexual) women (Pinquart &

Sörensen, 2011) who simultaneously perform

the bulk of marital emotion work (i.e., managing

one’s own or others’ emotional states) and mari-

tal housework (Hochschild, 1989) in addition to

their parental caregiving duties. These converg-

ing family roles create a compound burden of

“family work” for married heterosexual women

who are also parental caregivers.

The gendered dynamics of intergenerational

caregiving and spousal support provision are

Journal of Marriage and Family 78 (August 2016): 957–974 957

DOI:10.1111/jomf.12318

958 Journal of Marriage and Family

well established, yet emerging research points

to the limitations of studying family dynamics

solely in a heterosexual context (Umberson,

Thomeer, & Lodge, 2015). This limitation is

emphasized by a gender relations approach

(Connell, 2005; Springer, Hankivsky, & Bates,

2012), which calls attention to the ways both

spousal support and intergenerational caregiv-

ing dynamics likely depend not only on the

caregiver’s gender (i.e., whether an individual

is a man or a woman) but also on the rela-

tional gender composition of a marriage (i.e.,

man and man, man and woman, woman and

woman). Although gender relations theory is

widely endorsed in family studies, it is rarely

applied to the study of gendered family dynam-

ics (see Ferree, 2010). We take a step forward

by exploring the dynamics of spousal support

provision within gay, lesbian, and heterosexual

marriages wherein at least one adult child per-

forms intergenerational caregiving. We identify

intergenerational or parental caregiving as any

emotional, instrumental, or nancial action or

exchange done by an adult child with the aim of

facilitating the mental or physical well-being of

a parent (Seltzer & Bianchi, 2013); we identify

spousal support as any action or exchange that

is either intended or received by a spouse in

ways that alleviate stress or difculty experi-

enced as a result of intergenerational caregiving

(Erickson, 2005). We analyze qualitative dyadic

data from 90 in-depth interviews with midlife

individuals in 15 gay marriages, 15 lesbian

marriages, and 15 heterosexual marriages. We

advance research on marital ties by empirically

examining how spousal support during times

of intergenerational caregiving may depend

not only on not one’s own gender but also on

the gender of one’s spouse. We contribute to

research on intergenerational caregiving with an

analysis of how spousal support dynamics may

facilitate or impede intergenerational caregiving

in ways that potentially inuence the well-being

of all family members. This issue is especially

important in light of the growing number of

aging adults caring for parents in the United

States (Kahn et al., 2011).

B

Intergenerational caregiving is a time-

consuming and intensive role that commonly

includes overlapping dimensions of nancial

assistance and management, household tasks

(e.g., meal preparation, shopping, errand run-

ning), companionship and emotional support,

facilitation and supervision of social activities,

and engagement in medical and physical care

(Leopold, Raab, & Engelhardt, 2014; see Silver-

stein & Giarrusso, 2010, for a review). Although

caregiving is often voluntary and rewarding,

it is also highly stressful, with caregivers

experiencing diminished physical and psy-

chological well-being (Amirkhanyan & Wolf,

2006; Marks et al., 2002). Population-based

research demonstrates that women do the major-

ity of intergenerational caregiving (Pinquart &

Sörensen, 2011), in part as a result of normative

gender standards by which women, but not men,

are expected to provide care to family members.

Women are more likely than men to experience

stigma and guilt if they fail to provide inter-

generational care (Szinovacz & Davey, 2013);

thus, women perform intergenerational care

even if they are overburdened with other family

and work obligations (Bittman, England, Sayer,

Folbre, & Matheson, 2003). This gendered pat-

tern is especially true for intensive and ongoing

care work (e.g., daily physical care, emotional

support, negotiating treatment with medical

community); the gender difference in more ad

hoc assistance (e.g., weekly grocery shopping,

nancial assistance, lling prescriptions) is

less pronounced (Lee, Spitze, & Logan, 2003).

Studies that rely on qualitative and nonrepre-

sentative samples suggest that gay and lesbian

midlife adults (much like heterosexual adults)

provide intensive care to family members such

as parents (Cayleff, 2008; Price, 2011). For

example, qualitative research shows that lesbian

women (Parslow & Hegarty, 2013; Price, 2011)

as well as gay men (Cronin, Ward, Pugh, King,

& Price, 2011; Washington et al., 2015) often

provide care to parents even in the face of

homophobic rejection from parents. These prior

studies do not examine gender differences in the

ways that gay men and lesbian women approach

the provision of care to parents.

Previous survey research has addressed

the intersection of marriage and intergenera-

tional caregiving in heterosexual relationships,

highlighting three gender trends. First, because

women are more likely than men to provide care,

research has examined whether men provide

support to their caregiving wives, with mixed

ndings (Franks & Stephens, 1996). A second

body of work shows that women are more likely

to support men (than men are to support women)