Hans Hämäläinen, Antti O. Tanskanen, Jenni Pettay & Mirkka Danielsbacka
As the dissolution of parental partnerships and re-partnering have become more common, the number of blended families has increased significantly over the past few decades. This shift may have significant consequences for family relationships.
A gap in family relations
Family is the most important source of wellbeing and support for individuals. Yet, studies have shown that stepfamily relations tend to suffer from a phenomenon often labelled as the ‘step-gap’, that is, they exhibit poorer relationship quality compared to their biological counterparts. For instance, stepparents are typically emotionally more distant, have less frequent contact, and provide less support to their stepchildren than biological parents.
However, it remains unclear how support is directed toward stepparents and whether adult children offer less help to their stepparents than to their biological parents. As the old-age dependency ratio worsens rapidly and individuals are more dependent on family support, the question of whether stepfamily members provide a safety net to older adults is increasingly critical.
Study on the step-gap in upward support
In our study, we used data from the German Family Panel, which collected information on family relations and support between family members among young and middle-aged adults in Germany (n = 8,949). We investigated whether emotional support, financial aid, and practical help were directed more toward biological parents than stepparents.
The main findings of the study are illustrated in Figure 1, showing that adult children provided less help to their stepparents than to their biological parents, and this pattern was consistent across all three forms of help.
Figure 1. Support to parents and stepparents (adjusted means and standard errors). Support frequency is measured using a scale from 0 (never) to 4 (very often) (N = 8,949).
Furthermore, as illustrated in Figure 2, we found that a longer duration of co-residence with stepparents during childhood and adolescence was associated with providing them more emotional support and practical help in adulthood. However, although prolonged co-residence narrowed the gap in upward support between stepparents and biological parents, it did not eliminate it. This means that even when previous cohabitation was taken into account, adult children still provided more support to their biological parents than stepparents.
Figure 2. Support to stepparents by childhood co-residence duration (adjusted means and standard errors). Support frequency is measured using a scale from 0 (Never) to 4 (Very often) (N = 984).
Key takeaways from the study
Our findings suggests that, in terms of having access to family support, stepparents are at a disadvantage compared to those with biological children. As the demographic dependency ratio worsens and welfare states face growing fiscal pressure to reduce public services and benefits, it is important to acknowledge that ageing stepparents may not have the same opportunities for family support as older individuals with biological children.
The writers are Senior Researcher Hans Hämäläinen, Professor Antti O. Tanskanen, Senior Researcher Jenni Pettay and Professor Mirkka Danielsbacka at the INVEST Reserach Flagship Centere.
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The blog text is based on research article
Hämäläinen, H., Tanskanen, A. O., Pettay, J., & Danielsbacka, M. (2024). Step-gap in Upward Support: The Role of Biological Relatedness and Childhood Co-residence Duration. The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, 79(4), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gbad179
Photo by Hannah Busing on Unsplash
