Is it true that "only children" help their aged parents more than children with siblings?

Yes. Considering the situation from the children’s perspective, direct descendants are more implicated in helping their parents when they are the only child. In 2015, for example, 22% of "only children" were helping a dependent parent. In families with two children, only in 6.5% of situations were both siblings implicated in care, while one sibling alone was involved in 16% of them. For a given child in a two-sibling family, then, the probability of being involved in taking care of an aging parent is 14.6%. In 15.6% of three-sibling families, meanwhile, care of parents falls to one sibling only; very seldom—only in about 3% of such families—are all three children involved. Thus, the probability of being a carer falls as sibling group size grows. In three-sibling families, the likelihood that at least one will be involved in caring for an aged parent is 25%. And while the probability of receiving help from direct descendants increases slightly with their number, the burden of care is in most cases borne by one sibling alone, regardless of how many siblings there are in the family. 

However, when the parent in question is living with life partner, direct descendants spend less time caring for their parent and intervene less often than the parent’s partner. 

On line:June 2023