ABSTRACT
One of the fastest growing, and most exciting, areas of research on families is that of intergenerational exchanges of support. It is difficult not to find at least one article concerned with intergenerational topics in any recent issues of family, aging, or gerontological scholarly journals. Recent years have seen publication of a spate of books, convening of special conferences focused on intergenerational concerns, and sponsorship of data collection efforts featuring measures of intergenerational processes. Why are social scientists interested in intergenerational issues? What are we learning about contemporary generational relations in America today, and what might these findings tell us about the future? This chapter describes findings about patterns of intergenerational exchanges of support in contemporary American families from one survey, the National Survey of Families and Households. This survey, to be described more fully below, has had a major impact on scholarship on the family since its release in late 1988. Before 92discussing what we can learn about aging-parent/adult-child ties from these data, however, it is useful to review the reasons for the mounting interest, among scholars and policy makers, in intergenerational exchanges of support.
