TY - JOUR
T1 - Multigenerational families in nineteenth-century America
AU - Ruggles, Steven
PY - 2003
Y1 - 2003
N2 - Revisionist historians maintain that the aged in nineteenth-century America and north-western Europe usually preferred to reside alone or with only their spouse. According to this interpretation, the aged ordinarily resided with their adult children only out of necessity, especially in cases of poverty or infirmity. This article challenges that position, arguing that in mid-nineteenth-century America coresidence of the aged with their children was almost universal, and that the poor and sick aged were the group most likely to live alone. The article suggests that the decline of the multigenerational family in the twentieth century is connected to the rise of wage labour and the diminishing importance of agricultural and occupational inheritance.
AB - Revisionist historians maintain that the aged in nineteenth-century America and north-western Europe usually preferred to reside alone or with only their spouse. According to this interpretation, the aged ordinarily resided with their adult children only out of necessity, especially in cases of poverty or infirmity. This article challenges that position, arguing that in mid-nineteenth-century America coresidence of the aged with their children was almost universal, and that the poor and sick aged were the group most likely to live alone. The article suggests that the decline of the multigenerational family in the twentieth century is connected to the rise of wage labour and the diminishing importance of agricultural and occupational inheritance.
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U2 - 10.1017/S0268416003004466
DO - 10.1017/S0268416003004466
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0141837096
SN - 0268-4160
VL - 18
SP - 139
EP - 165
JO - Continuity and Change
JF - Continuity and Change
IS - 1
ER -