Changing Health and Marital Status among Elderly in China and Implications for Co-residence with Children

• In Event: 1283 - Section on the Sociology of the Family Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 05. Multigenerational Coresidence

Abstract

Older individuals’ transitions into poor health, widowhood, or other states of heightened vulnerability are fraught with risk in rapidly changing China. Social protection for the growing elderly population remains inadequate in this context, placing continued emphasis on family members as caregivers. In this article, we ask whether older individuals’ increasing needs – measured as a deterioration in self-reported health, increase in activity limitations, loss of spousal support due to spouse’s ill-health, death or exit from the union – predict transition into co-residence with adult children, net of other factors. We use nationally representative panel data from the China Family Panel Studies (2012 and 2014 waves), and employ multivariate logistic regression models with panel weights for our analysis. We find that older individuals who do not live with any adult children at baseline are more likely to live with at least one adult child in the follow-up if they experience the loss of spousal support or a (steep) increase in healthcare or functional needs in the interval. This confirms the continued practice of contingent co-residence, and modified altruistic behavior on the part of adult children, in contemporary China. As part of our extended analysis, we also examine if, in accordance with the logic of the contingent co-residence model, a decrease in parental needs provides co-resident children the latitude to live separately. We find some counter-intuitive results here, and conclude that further research that examines the fluidity of living arrangements for elderly near the end of life is required.

Authors

• Sneha Kumar, Cornell University

• Lindy Williams, Cornell University