Social relations and filial maturity in middle-aged adults: contextual conditions and psychological determinants

The aim of this paper is to highlight the contextual and psychological preconditions of parent help and helpfulness in a sample of 260 middle-aged persons belonging to two age groups, 40-45 years and 50-55 years. In a first step we want to focus on the description of the contextual situation of the persons of this "hinge generation": What are their available social networks; what are their commitments towards children and parents in terms of perceived obligation and investment; how is their perceived balance of giving and receiving; how do they anticipate and experience dependency of their parents? In a second step we will highlight the readiness of middle-aged women and men to help their parents as well as the effectively reported help. Here we are interested in the psychological determinants of such attitude and behaviour. Structural equation models are performed to estimate the predictory power of personality variables, control beliefs and reported stress (family and job) on filial helpfulness and help. Results suggest that differential aspects such as gender and age group explain a large amount of variance of the variables intergenerational commitment and satisfaction with social networks and have--along with personality variables--a strong impact on filial help and helpfulness of middle-aged adults.