With One Child Here and One Child There: Is There Specialization and Complementarity in Children’s Support Related to Their Place of Residence? The Mexican Case

Estela Rivero Fuentes, El Colegio de México
Anairis Hernandez Jabalera, El Colegio de México
Dolores Puga, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)

As societies age, individuals tend to depend more on family support for their economic survival and for help with their daily activities. This is especially true in cases such as Mexico where family ties are strong and institutions are only marginally involved. Past research has shown that most of the monetary and functional help for the elderly comes from family members, especially from children. It has also shown that coresident offspring are more likely to provide instrumental support, while non-coresidents are more likely to provide economic. However, these studies have not analyzed whether there is a specialization according to place of residence among children in the kind of help they provide, that may also talk about coordination and complementarity. In this paper we focus on this issue. We also construct different types of families depending on children’s place of residence and analyze the distribution of caregiving and economic support tasks.