Older parents’ contact and proximity with children across Europe: Updating evidence, integrating digital contact, and discussing measurement issues

Objectives. We aim to provide updated, comparative evidence on the prevalence of frequent contact (including digital) 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 is assessed with Spearman rank correlations and Kendall’s W. Results. We find a pronounced regional gradient: Southern Europe shows the highest levels of frequent contact and close proximity, Nordic and Continental countries the lowest, and Eastern Europe are in-between with internal heterogeneity. Digital communication is part of the intergenerational repertoire, albeit not clearly geographically patterned. Face-to-face and phone contacts remain dominant; texting is less widespread, while video calls remain rare. Measurement choices substantially shift prevalence levels but much less the ranking of countries that remains consistent also when adjusting for socio-demographics. Discussion. We document persistent family-regime differences and highlight digital contact as a supplementary facet of associational solidarity. Results point to risks of a double exclusion for older adults who lack face-to-face contact and cannot exploit digital tools and underscore that survey design choices matter for levels but not ranking-based comparisons, supporting the use of random-child items in general surveys.