Subjective well-being of parents and nonparents in middle and old age: Well-being premiums and penalties of parenthood in Germany and Europe

本研究旨在探讨父母身份与中晚年主观幸福感之间的关系。由于成年子女经常为年迈的父母提供照顾和支持，家庭研究人员经常认为，父母比没有父母的人有更高的主观幸福感。然而，其他研究人员指出，紧张的亲子关系会降低老年父母的主观幸福感。先前对这种关联的研究产生了不一致的结果，并且在各种方面受到限制。该项目旨在通过检查国家（SOEP， DEAS）和国际（SHARE， ESS）代表性数据集，对德国和欧洲父母和无子女个人之间的幸福差异产生新的见解。该项目分为三个部分。第一部分考虑了主观幸福感的多维性。在这里，我们将仔细研究父母身份与主观幸福感的积极和消极方面相关的方式，以及父母身份对主观幸福感的总体影响是否积极和消极影响相互抵消。该项目的第二部分将关注父母地位与主观幸福感之间关系的异质性。在这里，我们将研究亲子关系的特征以及成年子女和年长父母生活中的重大事件是否介导和调节这种关联。该项目的第三部分将分析父母和非父母之间的主观幸福感差距在多大程度上因环境因素而变化。在这里，我们将解决的问题，是否不同水平的制度支持老年人和社会规范对父母身份和主观幸福感之间的关联调节。

This project examines the association between parental status and subjective well-being in middle and late life. Because adult children often provide care and support for aging parents, family researchers often argue that parents experience higher subjec-tive well-being than nonparents. Others researchers, however, point out that strained parent-child relations can decrease older parents’ subjective well-being. Previous re-search on this association has produced inconsistent findings and is limited in various ways. This project aims to generate new insights into well-being differences between parents and childless individuals in Germany and Europe by examining national (SOEP, DEAS) and international (SHARE, ESS) representative datasets.The project in organized into three parts. In the first part takes into account the multi-dimensional nature of subjective well-being. Here, we will scrutinize the ways in which parenthood is associated with both positive and negative facets of subjective well-being, and whether positive and negative effects offset each other with regard to the overall impact of parenthood on subjective well-being. The second part of the project will focus on heterogeneity in the association between parental status and subjective well-being. Here, we will examine whether this associa-tion is mediated and moderated by characteristics of the parent-child relationship and major events in the lives of adult children and older parents. The third part of the project will analyse the extent to which the gap in subjective well-being between parents and nonparents varies by contextual factors. Here, we will ad-dress the question of whether differing levels of institutional support for elders and social norms towards parenthood moderate the association between parental status and subjective well-being.