Distance to old parents: Analyses of Swedish register data

Gunnar Malmberg; Anna Pettersson

Volume 17 - Article 23 | Pages 679–704

Distance to old parents: Analyses of Swedish register data

By Gunnar Malmberg, Anna Pettersson

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Date received:	05 Oct 2006
Date published:	20 Dec 2007
Word count:	7322
Keywords:	adult children, aging, child-parent proximity, intergenerational contacts, logistic regression analysis, old parents, registry data, Sweden
DOI:	10.4054/DemRes.2007.17.23

Abstract

In the present study, features of and trends in child-parent proximity in Sweden are analyzed using comprehensive register data. The results show that 85% of older parents have adult children within a radius of 50 km, of which 10% live ‘just around the corner’; corresponding figures for adult children are 72% and 5%, respectively. The study gives no indication of increasing intergenerational distances. Results from logistic regressions show that adult children who are well educated, female, older, born in Sweden, who are not parents, who live in densely populated areas, and have siblings are less likely to stay in the same region as their parents.