About

Dr. J. Jill Suitor is a Distinguished Professor of Sociology and a Faculty Associate of the Center on Aging and the Life Course at Purdue University. She earned her Ph.D. in Sociology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1985. Her research focuses on interpersonal relations and well-being, with particular emphasis on relationships between parents and adult children, among adult siblings, and within the context of family caregiving. She is especially interested in studying these processes in the context of family caregiving. Dr. Suitor's work has been supported by prominent institutions such as the National Institute on Aging, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the Spencer Foundation. She has contributed to the academic community through the publication of more than 140 journal articles and book chapters. Her editorial roles include serving as Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Innovation in Aging and as an Associate Editor of The Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences, both sponsored by the Gerontological Society of America and published by Oxford University Press. She has also served as a standing member of the NIH Study Sections on Social Sciences and Population Studies and on Personality, Social Psychology, and Interpersonal Processes. Since 2001, Dr. Suitor has led the Within Family Differences Study (WFDS), an NIH-supported, three-wave mixed-method panel investigation involving more than 550 multigenerational families. Her teaching includes graduate and undergraduate courses on family relationships across the life course, with a particular focus on later-life families.

Research topics

• Psychology
• Political Science
• Social Science
• Sociology
• Social psychology
• Medicine
• Internal medicine
• Demography
• Gerontology
• Developmental psychology
• Psychotherapist
• Psychiatry
• Virology

Selected publications

• Intergenerational Relationships and Family Support: Evidence for Health and Well-Being in Studies Supported by the National Institute on Aging

  The Gerontologist · 2025-01-09 · 7 citations

  reviewSenior author

  BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: This review summarizes research projects supported by the National Institute on Aging (NIA) that have contributed scholarship on intergenerational relationships and support provided to older adults that frequently precedes, and is often complementary to, intensive caregiving. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: We review NIA-supported projects that have almost exclusively focused on intergenerational relationships and involved primary data collections, and others making use of omnibus aging and family studies that have allowed a variety of investigations on this topic. Where the former set of studies has generated deeply phenotypic analyses-comprehensive fine-grained analyses of relational data in specialized samples-the latter set has focused on analyses of secondary data, often from national samples that include information on intergenerational relationships. RESULTS: Early research funded by NIA addressed the factors underlying cohesion across generations, including the Longitudinal Study of Generations. Subsequent studies shed light on the dynamics of ties between siblings or across multiple generations in navigating support and affection. Studies have revealed important information about transfers of tangible and nontangible resources, loss of parent or child, and diversity by race, ethnicity, and gender. DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS: NIA funding has made important inroads in understanding a relationship that is of primary importance in individuals' lives for their health and well-being.

  PublisherDOI

• “Because He’s My Baby”: The Role of Birth Order in How Mothers Explain Favoritism Toward Adult Children

  Sociological Perspectives · 2025-03-12 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  Last-born adult children are disproportionately likely to be their mothers’ “favored child.” Although past research shows that birth order shapes children’s likelihood of being favored, little is known about whether or how it shapes the reasons a child is favored. Using qualitative interview data from 233 older mothers, we examine how mothers’ explanations for favoring an adult child are shaped by their favored child’s birth order. Findings show that last-born children were most commonly favored due to mothers’ perceptions of their empathetic understanding. First-born children were most commonly favored for social–structural and experiential similarities. Middle-borns were most commonly favored because mothers perceived them to need their support more. This article contributes to family sociology by showing that birth order shapes not only the likelihood, but also the reasons for later-life maternal favoritism. Mothers’ perceptions of last-borns as more understanding and empathetic help explain their advantage in securing their mothers’ favor.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Receiving advice from mothers and depressive symptoms in midlife: exploring the moderating roles of gender and relationship quality

  The Journals of Gerontology Series B · 2025-11-27

  articleOpen access

  OBJECTIVES: Advice has been conceptualized as both a form of support and as a threat to recipients' feelings of autonomy and competence. However, little is known about the effects of advice from mothers on adult children's psychological well-being. This study examines the association between the frequency of advice from mothers and adult children's depressive symptoms. In addition, we investigate the ways in which this association is shaped by the gender of the adult child and the quality of the mother-child relationship. METHODS: The sample included 687 adult children (mean age: 49.1) in 283 families collected as part of the Within-Family Differences Study. We used multilevel modeling to account for the nested structure of the data. RESULTS: Using the full sample, we found that more frequent advice from mothers was associated with adult children's higher depressive symptoms. Models stratified by gender revealed that advice from mothers was associated with higher depressive symptoms among sons, but not daughters. Moderation analyses found that, among the full sample, mother-adult child tension exacerbated the association between advice from mothers and adult children's depressive symptoms. Gender comparisons revealed that, among sons, receiving advice was more strongly associated with greater depressive symptoms when tension was high or emotional closeness was low; however, neither closeness nor tension moderated the association between advice from mothers and daughters' depressive symptoms. DISCUSSION: This study contributes to the literature on intergenerational relations by highlighting the ways in which gender and relationship quality shape the association between receiving advice and well-being in midlife.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Maternal differential treatment and adult children's well‐being when mothers have cognitive impairment

  Journal of Marriage and the Family · 2025-01-15 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Objectives Our goal was to examine the role of perceptions of mothers' cognitive impairment (CI) in shaping the impact of maternal differential treatment on adult children's psychological well‐being. Background The detrimental impact of mothers' differential treatment on adult children's psychological well‐being has been well‐documented; however, little is known about whether this association is moderated by mothers' CI. Methods Mixed‐methods data were collected from 287 adult children (mean age = 59 years) nested within 142 families as part of the Within‐Family Differences Study. Analytic approaches were multilevel regression and in‐depth qualitative analyses. Results Perceiving oneself as the child to whom one's mother was most emotionally close or with whom she had the most conflict was associated with lower psychological well‐being among adult children who did not report that their mothers had symptoms of CI; however, such perceptions were not associated with well‐being when children perceived that mothers showed symptoms of CI. Qualitative analyses revealed that when children reported that mothers did not have CI, children attributed their greater closeness and conflict to unique characteristics of themselves or their mother–child ties. However, when children perceived that mothers showed symptoms of CI, attributions for mothers' differentiation focused on contextual factors surrounding mothers' cognitive health, and thus did not reflect on the children themselves. Thus, the negative impact of perceptions of mothers' differential treatment on well‐being was muted. Conclusion This study sheds light on conditions under which perceptions of maternal differential treatment affect adult children's psychological well‐being, and the role of cognitive health in these processes.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Differential Costs of Raising Grandchildren on Older Mother-Adult Child Relations in Black and White Families

  Research on Aging · 2024-06-14 · 2 citations

  article

  Drawing from theories of affect, role strain and stress processes, we studied the impact of raising grandchildren on older mothers' relationships with the adult offspring whose children they raised, with particular attention to how these patterns differ by race and ethnicity. We used mixed-methods data collected from 531 older mothers regarding their relationships with 1935 of their adult children as part of the Within-Family Differences Study. Multilevel regression analyses showed that raising grandchildren was associated with greater mother-adult child closeness in Black families; however, in White families, raising grandchildren was associated with greater mother-adult child conflict. Qualitative analyses revealed that these differences could be explained by the tendency of Black grandmothers to emphasize positive aspects of raising grandchildren, compared to White grandmothers, who viewed raising grandchildren as demanding and who described their exchanges with their adult children as unequal. Overall, our findings reflect racial and ethnic differences in intergenerational solidarity.

  PublisherDOI

• How Latine youth's positive development unfold through farmwork in rural migrant farmworker families in the U.S. Midwest

  Journal of Research on Adolescence · 2024-12-29

  articleOpen access

  Some Latine youth from rural migrant farmworker communities engage in farmwork to help support themselves and their families. Although research has documented their motives for working and some characteristics of their employment, knowledge about how these youth construct their work in the fields and how such experiences relate to their positive development is needed to depict their holistic experiences. Using mixed methods, we explored youth's farmwork experiences and examined how these experiences relate to youth's prosocial behaviors, civic responsibility, and ego-resiliency. Data are from a mixed-method study of Latine youth and parents in rural and agricultural families in the U.S. Midwest. The present study uses qualitative data from a subsample of 47 youth (Mage = 11.42, 48.8% boys) who participated in interviews and survey activities. Thematic coding of the interviews revealed sociocognitive, socioemotional, skilled-related, and physical experiences, as well as prosocial considerations that included perspective taking, moral reasoning, and empathetic concern. Integrating qualitative and quantitative data showed that these experiences were distinctively associated with higher other-oriented and lower self-oriented prosocial behaviors and higher ego-resiliency. Further, farmworker youth also showed significantly lower civic efficacy, indicating that farmwork may discourage some aspects of civic responsibility. The results can inform policy and program designs on promoting Latine youth's positive development in the face of adversity, such as by highlighting character development and bridging youth engagement with civic spheres.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• BALANCING HEALTH AND CAREGIVING: ADULT CHILDREN’S HEALTH PROBLEMS IMPACT ON CAREGIVING

  Innovation in Aging · 2024-12-01

  articleOpen access

  Abstract When older mothers face chronic or acute health problems their adult children often become caregivers, serving as either as the primary or secondary sources of informal care. However, when adult children are facing their own serious health problems, their ability to serve as caregivers may be limited. Surprisingly, the literature provides no clear insight into whether children’s health affects their provision of care to their mothers. In the present study, we shed new light on this question using quantitative and qualitative data collected from 412 adult children nested within 224 families as part of the Within-Family Differences Study. Quantitative analyses showed that adult children with health problems were as likely as their healthy siblings to serve as their mothers’ primary and secondary caregivers. Consistent with the literature, daughters were substantially more likely than sons to serve as caregivers. Qualitative analyses revealed that this gendered pattern occurred even in families in which daughters had serious health problems and sons were healthy. Daughters’ explanations for becoming caregivers despite their health limitations indicated that they had internalized messaging that they were the “naturally better” caregivers compared to their brothers. Adult children caregivers reported higher level of caregiver burden than that reported by healthy caregivers as they shouldered joint responsibility for their own and their mothers’ care. These findings underscore the ways in which gendered expectations for care and health problems across generations intersect to increase the risk of caregiver burden and unmet care needs for members of both generations.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Adult sibling tension and psychological well-being in the context of older mothers’ health limitations: Variation by gender and race

  Journal of Social and Personal Relationships · 2024-12-20 · 1 citations

  article

  Research on sibling relationships has documented an association between sibling tension and psychological well-being across the life course, however, less is known about how sibling tension in adulthood shapes psychological well-being in the context of older parents’ health limitations. We extend research on sibling tension and psychological well-being by considering the following: (1) Does the association between sibling tension and depressive symptoms vary by whether older mothers have health limitations? and (2) Does the association between sibling tension and depressive symptoms vary by gender or race when mothers have health limitations? To examine these research questions, we used mixed-methods data collected from 689 adult children nested within 287 families as part of the Within-Family Differences Study. Analysis using multi-level regression modeling revealed that the association between sibling tension and depressive symptoms did not vary by whether older mothers had health limitations nor gender. However, the association varied by race when mothers had health limitations. Specifically, the association between sibling tension and depressive symptoms was stronger in Black families in which mothers did not have health limitations compared to Black families in which mothers did have health limitations. In contrast, there were no differences in the strength of the association between sibling tension and depressive symptoms in White families, regardless of mothers’ limitations status. Qualitative findings indicated that for siblings in Black families, older mothers’ health limitations enhanced values of cohesion among adult children, reducing the association between sibling tension and depressive symptoms.

  PublisherDOI

• A Coordinated Data Analysis of Four Studies Exploring Age Differences in Social Interactions and Loneliness During a Global Pandemic

  The Journals of Gerontology Series B · 2024-05-18

  articleOpen access

  OBJECTIVES: Examining loneliness and social isolation during population-wide historical events may shed light on important theoretical questions about age differences, including whether these differences hold across different regions and the time course of the unfolding event. We used a systematic, preregistered approach of coordinated data analysis (CDA) of 4 studies (total N = 1,307; total observations = 18,492) that varied in design (intensive repeated-measures and cross-sectional), region, timing, and timescale during the first year of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. METHODS: We harmonized our data sets to a common period within 2020-2021 and created a common set of variables. We used a combination of ordinary least squares regression and multilevel modeling to address the extent to which there was within- and between-person variation in the associations between social isolation and loneliness, and whether these associations varied as a function of age. RESULTS: Within- and between-person effects of social interactions were negatively associated with loneliness in 1 study; in follow-up sensitivity analyses, these patterns held across early and later pandemic periods. Across all data sets, there was no evidence of age differences in the within-person or between-person associations of social interactions and loneliness. DISCUSSION: Applying the CDA methodological framework allowed us to detect common and divergent patterns of social interactions and loneliness across samples, ages, regions, periods, and study designs.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Worrying Across the Generations: The Impact of Adult Grandchildren’s Problems on Grandparents’ Well-Being

  The Journals of Gerontology Series B · 2024-09-13 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  OBJECTIVES: The intergenerational stake hypothesis and theories of the life course posit that older generations are invested in the well-being of younger generations. Consistent with this, previous research has shown that adult children's problems are associated with worse parental well-being. Because multigenerational ties have become increasingly important in the 21st century, we propose that adult grandchildren's problems may also impact grandparents' well-being. In this paper, we test this hypothesis and investigate the moderating effects of grandparents' race and maternal/paternal status. METHODS: The analytic sample includes 206 grandparents aged 65-95 who participated in the second wave of the Family Exchanges Study. Adult grandchildren's problems were operationalized as the proportions of adult grandchildren who experienced (1) physical-emotional problems and (2) lifestyle-behavioral problems. RESULTS: Main effects multilevel analyses suggested that adult grandchildren's problems did not predict grandparents' well-being. However, moderation analyses revealed that the association between grandparents' depressive symptoms and adult grandchildren's physical-emotional problems was larger among Black than White grandparents, and maternal than paternal grandparents. Adult grandchildren's lifestyle-behavioral problems did not predict grandparents' depression, and these effects were not conditioned by race or maternal/paternal status. DISCUSSION: These findings expand research on the importance of grandparent-adult grandchild relationships and contribute to research on multigenerational relationships and health by considering how problems experienced by members of younger generations affect the psychological well-being of older adults.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Within-Family Differences Study-Bereavement

  NIH · $756k · 2019–2021

• NIH Grant R01AG018869

  NIH · $3.2M · 2014

Frequent coauthors

• Karl Pillemer

  Cornell University

  95 shared

• Megan Gilligan

  University of Missouri

  94 shared

• Marissa Rurka

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  38 shared

• Jori Sechrist

  McMurry University

  20 shared

• L Mohebbi

  John Marshall Law School

  19 shared

• N Mundell

  Ball State University

  19 shared

• Linda V. DeCherrie

  18 shared

• Alex D. Federman

  Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

  18 shared

Awards & honors

• Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Innovation in Aging
• Associate Editor of The Journal of Gerontology: Social Scien…