SIBLING RELATIONSHIPS IN THE MIDDLE AND LATER YEARS: VARIATIONS BY RACE, CULTURE, AND NATIONALITY

In this symposium, we consider the roles of siblings in the lives of adults in the middle and later years, using data collected from several nations and from Black and white families within the U.S. All four studies use within-family approaches to explore the ways in which ties within the sibship and with other family members affect adult children’s relational and psychological well-being. In the first paper, Bedford and Avioli use data from the U.S. to examine how relationships with other siblings affects twins’ dyadic closeness in adulthood. In the second, Rosendahl uses data from Sweden to examine how siblings’ relationships with one another are shaped by whether twins are perceived as “units” by other family members. Next, Horge-Freeman uses data from Salvador, Bahia, and Brazil to investigate the role of racial features (skin color, hair, nose shape) in parents’ differential treatment of their children, and the long-term consequences of such differentiation on emotional, behavioral and material well-being. Finally, Gilligan, Suitor, Rurka, and Holst use data collected in the U.S. from Black and white families to explore the consequences of sibling death on the sibling relations and psychological well-being of surviving adult children, with particular focus on variations by race and timing of the loss. Taken together, these studies show that the family dynamics that shape both sibling relationship quality and the consequences of sibling relations on well-being are far more similar than different across races, cultures and nationalities.