{"doi":"10.31235/osf.io/jkzwm","title":"Rely on Your Spouse or Your Kid(s)?: Marital Status, Parental Status, and Unmet Care Needs of Older Adults with and without Dementia","abstract":"Objectives: This study aims to provide one of the first population-based studies to examine the association between family formations (i.e., parental and marital status) and unmet care needs in the United States. Variations by dementia status were also explored. Methods: Data came from the National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS, 2011-2018). The study sample consisted of 7,778 Medicare beneficiaries who needed assistance with daily activities. Family formations were measured by older adults' marital status and parental status (i.e., number of children, children's gender, and step parenthood). Mixed-effects logistic regression models were estimated to predict the odds of experiencing unmet care needs. Results: For older adults without dementia, those who were divorced and had more than four children were more likely to have unmet care needs. Among older adults with dementia, marital status was not significantly associated with unmet care needs, while parents with 2-3 children still showed higher odds of unmet care needs. Regardless of dementia status, having both sons and daughters and the presence of stepchildren were associated with a higher risk of unmet care needs.Discussion: Older adults’ family formations matter to their unmet care needs. Future research should explore the mechanisms linking these two. A focus on improving the quality of long-term services and support for vulnerable older adults with respect to their family relationships is needed.","journal":"SocArXiv (OSF Preprints)","year":2022,"id":308657,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":0.0,"corpus_rank":10654,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":true,"is_dataset_confidence":0.5693,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2022-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1003467,"name":"Zhiyong Lin","orcid":"0000-0002-0161-7040","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":468927,"name":"Yan Zhang","orcid":"0000-0001-9177-2732","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":35,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-19T00:33:07.132912Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}