Filial Responsibility in the Welfare State

Abstract

In the Norwegian welfare state, the traditional role of adult children as service providers to their aging parents exists side by side with a new role as mediator with the service bureaucracy. A random sample of 500 Norwegian elderly, living at home, was interviewed about the help they receive from public and private sources. This study shows that despite the high level of public services, adult children play an active part in caring for parents. State provision of help is shown to have no effect on daughters'service provision, but a slight negative effect on sons'help. The distribution of home help services suggests an additional role for children in securingparents this important service. Adult children, except for daughters living close by, appear to increase parents'access to public home help in the early phases of disability.