Caregiving to Aging Parents (Report‪)‬

Abstract It is a well-established fact that the United States is an aging society. Increasing longevity and life expectancy has increased the number of elderly persons with chronic health conditions who are in need of special social services and caregiving by family members. Due to the fact that the aging population has grown significantly, the need for adult children to care for their parents has increased dramatically (Atchley and Barusch, 2004, p. 221). Currently, many of the large cohort of baby boomers (persons born between 1946 and 1964), who will become a part of the elderly population of the future, are caregivers for their aging parents. The baby boomers of today are likely to spend more years caring for a parent than for children (Federal Trade Commission, 1998). These social changes and population trends have created the need to gain a better understanding of the patterns of caregiving by adult children to their aging parents and how adult children can assist their parents in managing and planning for the consequences of aging.