Although all parents want is to have a happy, healthy child, a new study suggests that having a daughter might be better for parents in the long run.
According to the study researcher, Angelina Grigoryeva, a doctoral candidate in sociology at Princeton University, women are more likely than men to do as much as they can in providing care for their aging parents, according to the website Counsel Heal.
Grigoryeva analyzed data taken from the University of Michigan Health and Retirement Study in 2004. The study collected information every two years on a nationally representative sample of more than 26,000 people over the age of 50, according to the publication.
Grigoryeva found that daughters cared for their parents an average of 12.3 hours per month whereas sons only provide an average of 5.6 hours of care, according to research results.
It was also found that the amount of care daughters and sons gave depended on the presence of other potential caregivers. For women, care increased when they had a brother, whereas care decreased in men with sisters.
"In other words, daughters spend twice as much time, or almost seven more hours each month, providing care to elderly parents than sons. The amount of elderly parent care daughters provide is associated with constraints they face, such as employment or childcare, sons' caregiving is associated only with the presence or absence of other helpers, such as sisters or a parent's spouse," stated Grigoryeva, according to the press release.
The study, "When Gender Trumps Everything: The Division of Parent Care Among Siblings," will be presented at the American Sociological Association's 109th Annual Meeting in San Francisco, CA.
