Older parent–adult child contact and proximity across Europe: New evidence, digital communication, and measurement issues

Objectives: We aim to provide updated, comparative evidence on the prevalence of frequent (face-to-face, telephone, and digital) contact and close proximity between older parents and their children, and to assess how measurement choices affect cross-national patterns in Europe. Methods: We use data on 23 European countries from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe wave 9 (2021-2022) and the European Social Survey round 10 (2020-2022) to estimate the prevalence of frequent contact and close proximity across different approaches: most-contacted versus random child, any versus mode-specific contact, distance versus travel-time thresholds. Cross-national coherence in country rankings is assessed with Spearman rank correlations. Results: We find a pronounced regional gradient from Southern Europe, with the highest levels of any-mode and face-to-face frequent contact and close proximity, to Nordic and several Continental countries, with the lowest. Eastern Europe lies in-between, with high internal heterogeneity. Instead, digital contact does not follow a clear geographic pattern. Face-to-face and phone contact remain widespread, whereas text and especially video contact are less common. Measurement choices substantially shift prevalence levels, and although country orderings are often similar, concordance is weak for proximity measures based on spatial distance and travel time. Discussion: We document persistent family-regime differences and interpret digital contact as a supplementary channel of associational solidarity that does not reflect the traditional North/South gradient. We also show that survey design choices matter not only for levels but sometimes also for cross-national orderings.