Intergenerational Relationships, Family Caregiving Policy, and COVID-19 in the United States

ABSTRACT

Families and intergenerational relationships are important sources of risk for COVID-19 infection, especially for older adults who are at high risk of complications from the disease. If one family member is exposed to the virus they could serve as a source of transmission or, if they fall ill, the resources they provide to others could be severed. These risks may be especially heightened for family members who work outside the home and provide care, or for those family members who care for multiple generations. Policies have the potential to help families bear the burden of these decisions. This essay argues that policies that address health, employment, and other social issues have implications for families, and that policies aimed at families and caregivers can affect the health, employment, and the general well-being of the nation.

KEYWORDS:

• Families
• intergenerational relationships
• caregiving
• multigenerational households
• employment

Key Points

• Families and intergenerational relationships may be an underexplored source of risk for transmission of COVID-19.

• Women and racial minorities are particularly likely to be caregivers for one or more family members of older and younger generations.

• Policies aimed at health, employment, and social welfare should take the diversity of family structure and the importance of family caregiving into account.

• Policies aimed at families and caregivers have the potential to have a positive impact on reducing the spread of COVID-19 through helping family members to balance work and caregiving responsibilities.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health (T32AG000221). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.