Text 3Samuel H. Preston, a sociologist at the Universjty of Pennsylvania, studied how the

Text 3

Samuel H. Preston, a sociologist at the Universjty of Pennsylvania, studied how the American family is changing. He reported that by the time the average American couple reaches 40 years of age, they have more parents than children. This finding shows the change in lifestyles (生活方式) and duties of aging Americans. The average middle-aged couple can look forward to caring for eld- erly parents some time after their own children have grown up.

Because Americans are living longer than ever, more researchers and social workers have be- gun to study care giving to improve care of the elderly. When people care for an elderly relative, they often do not use community (社区) services, such as adult (成人) daycare centres. If the care givers are adult children, they are more'likely to use such services, especially because they of- ten have jobs and other business. However, the wife of an elderly person is much less likely to use support services or to put the dependent person in a nursing home. Social workers discovered that the reason for this difference was fear of becoming poor. An ill elderly person may live for years, and medical care and nursing homes are very expensive. An elderly couple's savings can disappear very quickly. The other half, usually the wife, can be left in poor living conditions. As a result, she often tries to take care of her husband herself for as long as she can.

64. An example of changes in American lifestyles is that

[A] they prefer to have more children

[B] the elderly like living with their children

[C] the middle-aged couples have different caregiving duties

[D] the average age for American couples to have children is 40