Gender inequality in intergenerational contact after parental separation in the digital era

ObjectiveThe goal of this brief report is to analyze the association between parental separation and parent-adult child contact frequency, by focusing on parent and child gender and the type of contact.BackgroundParental separation increases gender inequality in parent-child relationships, with separated fathers having less frequent contact with their adult children compared to separated mothers. We investigate whether the reduction of post-separation contact varies according to parent-child gender (mis-)match and the type of contact, i.e. face-to-face, phone, or digital.MethodWe use data on Italian families from a nationally representative survey to examine parent-child contact frequency among 6,855 adult children aged 30-55 (11,332 parent-child dyads). We estimate multinomial logistic regression models to analyze the probabilities of having sporadic, occasional, and frequent contact with older parents in intact and non-intact families.ResultsParental separation is associated with less frequent face-to-face, phone and digital contact between parents and their adult children, particularly between fathers and their daughters, while mother-daughter ties remain substantially unaffected. Face-to-face and phone contact reduces at greater extent than digital contact. However, changes in phone and digital contact reinforces, rather than compensates for, the reduction of face-to-face contact following parental separation.ConclusionWe interpret these findings by focusing on the centrality of mother-daughter ties and the loyalty that children have with the same-gender parent. We also suggest that the cumulative effect of parental separation on different types of contact may lead to a polarization of older parents with “strong” and “weak” family ties.