Sons and daughters:adult children’s care for the elder parents at the end of life in rural China

Based on life course perspective, using data of the death survey derived from 5 wave longitudinal questionnaire surveys conducted in rural China,this paper studied factors affacting child care to older parents at the end of life. Multi-level linear model revealed that care is affacted by the birth order of the child, physical distance and intergenerational exchange before death. End-of-life care is mainly provided by sons and by only son or only daughter. The eldest child’s care ranked secondly,and least is provided by the youngest child. The child coresiding with older parents before death provided most and those who lives in the same village ranked secondly. Physical distance will reduce care. Those children,especially sons, who have more frequent intergenerational exchange with parents before death, provided more end-of-life care. It is imply that child’s end-of-life care is droven by traditional "filial piety and fraternal duty" norm and mechanism of children’s care labor division confirms to the principle of optimizing needs through strategic allocation of resources throughout the family system. Migrant children face competing obligations,while negative effects of sharp decline in fertility on older parents seems not as bad as imagined. Migration counterbalanced gender division of children in terms of end-of-life care.