Family Supports in Later Life: Does Ethnicity Make a Difference?1

A lack of conceptual clarity has hampered research on ethnicity and family supports in later life. Ethnicity has been variously conceptualized as: culture; inequality; and traditional ways of thinking and behaving. Each conception leads to a distinctive model of aging in ethnic families. The implications of these conceptions are discussed. It is argued that the dimensions of culture, structure, and behavior must be kept conceptually and analytically distinct, and that analysis of the relationship between any two must control for the effects of the third.