TITLE: FACILITATING THE HEALTH OF OUR ELDERS: ADDING THE CONCEPT OF
FAMILIAL EFFICACY TO DISCUSSIONS OF HEALTH AND CAREGIVING
power per se, but to hold these factors constant in examining the effects of familial efficacy.
Finally, measures for household income and education were included to approximate and control
for issues regarding socio-economic status.
Descriptive Results
Table 1 shows the descriptive results from most of the variables included in the analysis.
Looking first at the “health population”, more than 80% of the respondents reported themselves
to be in good or excellent health, and about 60% reported their mothers to also be so. About
20% of the respondents have adult children, which indicates their status in the sandwich
generation (Pearlin, Pioli, and McLaughlin 2001). About 60% have siblings, which of course are
a major element in the creation of familial efficacy. About 60% of the respondents are female,
15% are black, and 8% are Hispanic with the rest being white males respectively.
The majority of the respondents live in married households, with 17% indicating they are
single parents, 5% indicating they cohabitate and 15% indicating that they themselves live alone.
Most of the respondents have at least a high school education, with the few extremes. Although
the familial efficacy score was calculated separately for different family combinations, it has
stayed surprisingly centered, with a slight skew to the lower levels. Respondent’s age was not
considered for the health models, since there are so many other variables indicating various
stages in the life course that I feared more multi-colinearity than was already unavoidable.
Looking to the disabled population, less than a third of respondents actually receive help
from their adult children. Familial efficacy for this group is more centered and normally
distributed. The average age of the respondents is 65, with large variation. Only an African
Americans dummy variable was created, because of small numbers Asians and Hispanics. Forty-
E.
C
.
H
EDBERG
,
D
EPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY
,
U
NIVERSITY OF
C
HICAGO
12
Convention