Adult Child Financial Disadvantage and the Cognitive Trajectories Among Older Parents in the United States.

OBJECTIVES

Adult child socioeconomic status (SES) has been identified as a predictor of older parents' cognitive aging. However, studies have primarily relied on educational attainment as the sole measure of adult child SES. We evaluated the relationship between adult children's financial disadvantage and cognitive outcomes of older parents in the United States.

METHODS

We used data from U.S. Health and Retirement Study (2000-2014, n = 15,053 respondents ≥51 years with at least 1 adult child). Adult child financial disadvantage was measured with 3 indicators of extremely low income, unemployment, and lack of homeownership. We used linear mixed models to estimate the association between adult child financial disadvantage and the rate of decline in verbal memory scores, controlling for respondents' sociodemographic characteristics.

RESULTS

Having at least 1 adult child (vs no adult children) with extremely low income was found to be associated with lower verbal memory (b = -0.041, 95% confidence interval [CI]: -0.043, -0.039) at baseline. There was a small but significant association with the rate of decline in verbal memory z-scores (b = 0.004, 95% CI: 0.000, 0.008) and some evidence of heterogeneity by parent gender, marital status, and SES.

DISCUSSION: Offspring financial disadvantage may be influential for older parents' initial level of memory function, although evidence of associations with memory decline was weak. Public policy interventions aimed at improving the economic conditions of adult children may indirectly benefit the cognitive performance of disadvantaged parents in their later life.