BELIEFS ABOUT WOMENS INTERGENERATIONAL FAMILY OBLIGATIONS TO PROVIDE SUPPORT BEFORE AND AFTER DIVORCE AND REMARRIAGE

Perceptions of women's intergenerational family obligations after divo rce and remarriage were examined in this study. One hundred and ninety women and 93 men responded to a four-paragraph vignette about two wom en, either mother and daughter or in-laws, who alternately needed the other's help. Conditions in the vignette were systematically varied. O ver time, the younger woman divorces and remarries. After each paragra ph, respondents answered forced-choice and open-ended questions about what they thought the vignette characters should do. Participants beli eved that family members are obligated to help other family members in times of need, although these obligations are conditional. The obliga tion for the older generation to help their adult children appears to be greater than the obligation for adults to help elderly mothers and mothers-in-law, and there is a stronger obligation to biological kin t han to in-laws. Perceived obligations toward stepgrandchildren are con siderably weaker than obligations coward grandchildren.