Population ageing and intergenerational relations

This study is first in a series of multi-topic papers on ageing in seven states covering all regions of India. It identifies which elderly are most vulnerable to living alone and familial support they receive from children- instrumental and in-kind. The Building a Knowledge Base on Population Aging in India (BKBPAI) data is used- a novel survey encompassing 9,852 elderly. We find that a majority of elderly co-reside with other family members, but 22 percent of elderly either live alone (6%) or with spouse only (16%). Due to higher widowhood among women, they are more likely to live alone. Migration of children emerges as the most important reason for elderly living alone; however family conflicts and preference for independence are important. Additionally: illiterate, poor and socially marginalized elderly are more likely to live alone. Kin support through monetary transfers and frequent meetings is twice as likely for elderly living alone.

The present paper focuses on family support and social adjustment of elderly in rural Maharashtra. Issues like adjustment in various stages of life regarding self, health and social matters are explored and discussed under the sub domain of social adjustment. Further, the impact of various socio-economic factors on social adjustment is discussed in detail. Data for this study was collected from rural areas of Amravati district, Maharashtra using semi-structured interview schedule. 600 males and females were interviewed using systematic sampling technique. Multinomial logistic regression was applied to analyse the data collected from the field. The higher proportion of elderly living in joint families shows better social adjustment than those living in nuclear families or living alone. Marital status has significant influence on their social adjustment. The elderly who get family support and care are more socially adjustable than the elders with no family support. The family support system and level of social adjustment of elderly in rural Maharashtra seems to be good. However, there are elders who are not getting any kind of support from either from family or from the government and for them we need to have some sort of policy or support system to secure their welfare.

Declining fertility in China has raised concerns about elderly support, especially when public support is inadequate. Using rich information from the nationally representative China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) baseline survey fielded in 2011-12, we find that roughly 43% of Chinese aged 60 and over live with a child; living with a male child being strongly preferred. However another 31% have a child living in the same neighborhood and 13% in the same county; only 5% have the nearest child living outside the same county as the parent and another 8% have no living children. Single elderly men and women living in urban areas (mostly widows and widowers) are more likely to live with their children or have their children living nearby, as are urban elderly residents. Children with high levels of income are less likely to live with their parents or to live nearby, but if parents have higher income, one of their children is more likely to be living with them or nearby. We also find that among non-co-resident children, those living close by visit their parents more frequently and have more communications by phone, email, text messages and regular mail. On the other hand, children who live farther away are more likely to send financial and in-kind transfers and send larger amounts.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to develop a measurement model of social network, and to investigate the association of social network with socioeconomic and demographic variable.

Method: A sample of 600 older persons aged 60+ living in the 12 selected villages in rural Uttar Pradesh was recruited using Multi-stage random sampling.Social networks with children, relatives, friends and confidant were considered. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed to test a multi-dimensional model of social networks.

Results: The results of the CFA demonstrated that the four specific social network types : children, relatives, friends and confidant proposed by Glass et al. were tenable. Large differences in specific social networks and total social networks by categories of age-group, marital status, educational attainment, working status, caste, wealth index and living arrangement were evident. Gender was not statistically significantly associated with any of the specific social network and total network.


Conclusion: Greater comparability between studies of older persons will be allowed with these proposed measures. The effect of the specific and total social network variables could lead to a better understanding of the effects of social networks upon health.

Objectives: To investigate the effects of total social networks and specific social networks with children, relatives and friends, and confidant on disability among the older persons in rural Uttar Pradesh, India. Berkman’s theoretical model of social relations linking to health is used to determine their applicability to the older persons in India.

Method: A sample of 600 older persons aged 60+ living in 12 villages in rural Uttar Pradesh was recruited using multi-stage random sampling. Two well known scales Activity of daily living (ADL) and instrumental activity of daily living (IADL) were used to assess disability in older persons. The effect of social network with children, relatives, friends and confidant on disability was analysed using multinomial logistic regression.

Results: After controlling for a range of health and personal factors, social network with friends and confidant were protective against developing ADL and IADL disability. Social sub-networks with children, and relatives did not have a significant protective against on the development of disability.

Conclusion: The findings have implications regarding the non-kin support particularly from friends in aging families and to provide elders with opportunities to interact with friends and confidant person.

Objectives: This study explores the association of specific social networks (children, relatives, friends and confidant) with depressive symptoms among older persons.

Method: A sample of 600 older persons aged 60+ living in the 12 village in the rural Uttar Pradesh was recruited using Multi-stage random sampling. Depressive symptoms were assessed using the composite international diagnostic interview scale. Berkman’s theoretical model of social relations linking to health is used to determine their applicability to the Indian older persons.

Results: Elderly people belonging to upper total social network had reported lowest depression (17 percent). However, older persons from low and mid total social network were 34 percent and 30 percent reported depression respectively. Multivariate analysis shows that, networks with ‘friends’ was only having statistically significant protective effect upon depression. Mid and upper category for ‘friends’ network versus the lower category appeared to be protective against depression. However, the specific network with children, relatives and confidant did not have significant effect on depression.

Conclusion: Intervention programs should be designed to promote the importance of strengthening non-familial social networks of older persons, particularly for those living alone.

Informal care is the primary elderly-support pattern in China, and women have taken the main responsibility of caregiving. A sharp decline in government support for care provision and the fast population aging have increased the care burden on the women in the family. With the data derived from China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) and ordered-probit model, we try to examine the relation between hours of parental care and self-reported health of married women in urban China. Our results show that married women would report much worse health if hours caring for parent-in-law increase, with the probability of “Excellent” and “Good” health reduced, and the probability of “Fair” and “Poor’ health increased. It is possibly concluded that traditional patrilineal familial norms still play a role in shaping intra-household allocation in urban China as hour burden of caregiving for parent-in-law would significantly strengthen married women’s mental stress whereas taking care of own parents not. We should pay more attention to the negative impact of increasing parental care burden on the emotional and physical health and wellbeing of married women. Changes should be made to China’s existing eldercare policies, especially establishment of formal and inform support system to the women caregivers.

Present paper focuses on care and support elderly gets in family and their perceptions towards younger generation in rural Maharashtra. Issues like situation of aged in the context of respect and care, how the aged and their subsequent generation perceive ageing, elderly’s views and opinions about young generation have been explored in this study. Further, the impact of various socio-economic characteristics on the perceptions of elderly towards younger generation is discussed in detail. Data for this study was collected from the rural Maharashtra using semi structured interview schedule. 600 males and females were interviewed using systematic sampling technique and use multivariate analysis. Result reveals that one third of elderly in rural area are not getting proper care and support from their children/family, many of them perceive ageing as a problem. The study also shows that the elderly living alone with their spouses develop a more negative perception towards the younger generation as compared to those living with their children. The study highlights the need for company of either married or unmarried children to make elderly feel more secure.

Less explored is the relationship between living arrangement concordance (the correspondence between the actual and preferred living arrangement) among the elderly and their wellbeing in developing countries. It is mainly due to the assumption that the actual living arrangement is a partial consequences of preference. However, there can be several constraints in achieving a perfect correspondence between the actual and the preferred living arrangements. This paper endeavors to examine the relationship between preferred and actual living arrangement, living arrangement concordance and their determinants among Indian elderly using survey data from the study on building knowledge base on ageing in India. The analysis reveals that despite majority of the elderly live in co-residence, preference data indicates the growing acceptance of living separately from children, especially among the better educated elderly. Besides this, the study also shows a mismatch between the preferred and actual living arrangement indicating discordance in living arrangement. Logistic regression analysis shows that living arrangement concordance is largely determined by the education of the elderly, their economic dependency and household wealth index. Unlike other studies, discordance is more among people from better socio economic strata suggesti

The provision of informal care in later life is becoming increasingly important against the background of public expenditure cuts which threaten the level of support provided to older people and their carers. This paper uses data from waves 3 and 4 of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing in order to explore the characteristics of carers aged 50 and over. The bivariate analysis explores the patterns of informal care provision in later life, including the hours of care provided per week and the relationship to the person cared for, as well as key socio-economic characteristics, such as housing tenure and the receipt of benefits from the welfare state. The multivariate analysis explores the determinants of becoming a round-the-clock carer in later life, defined as providing more than 110 hours of care per week. The results show that in terms of their health, socio-economic situation and receipt of state support, carers face a disadvantage compared to non-carers, while round-the-clock carers fare worse than other types of carers. Such results raise critical questions about the adequacy of social policy for this group of carers at a time of expenditure cuts.