Socioeconomic differences in having living parents and children: A US-British comparison of middle-aged women

This article examines the relationship between socioeconomic status and hav ing living children and parents among 55- to 63-year-old women in the Unite d States and Britain. The goals are to quantify the outcomes of slightly di fferent demographic regimes on close kin networks and to assess the potenti al implications of policies that in both countries increasingly emphasize f amily responsibility. In the cohorts examined, U.S. respondents are substan tially more likely to have living parents and children, but the pattern of socioeconomic effects is similar across countries. Higher socioeconomic sta tus is associated with having fewer children and, less consistently, is ass ociated with a higher probability of having living parents and being childl ess. However, higher-status women are more likely to have both living paren ts and children.