Population ageing and intergenerational transfers: challenges for social welfare policies

Western societies age rapidly. Today, people do not only live longer, they also have less children. These developments exert considerable pressure on pension and health systems. Children are the most important source of support in old age, especially when there is no partner. Older parents also transfer significant amounts of money to them. In times of rising childlessness we thus face new challenges: On which support networks do childless older people rely? (How) can the lack of children be compensated? Who provides help and care? Who profits from financial resources of the elderly?

We assess the support networks the childless aged 50 and over in 14 European countries based on SHARE focusing the importance of the extended family as well as public services. Our analyses show that financial transfers are diminished considerably and private help is often taken over by the extended family and neighbours. Intense care tasks, however, are mostly provided by public providers. The family and especially intergenerational relations play an important role for support in old age. When there are no children, vital support for older persons has to be taken over by public providers in many cases. In countries with low service provision, childless older people thus experience a lack of help, especially when depending on vital care.

Using the first wave of the Korean Longitudinal Study of Ageing, KLoSA), a nationwide representative study of middle/old-aged population in 2006, we examines (1) how the young adults and their parents exchange economic resources in Korean and (2) whether the above two theories explain economic exchange behaviors. Our sample consists of 1,067 parents who have 1,392 single children who finish formal education, live independently and from 19 to 39 years old. We find that 12.6% of the parents provide an average of 4,593,000 won (=$4,130) to young adult children during the last year. And we find that 35.2% of young adult children provide an average of 1,674,000 won (=$1,505) to parents. Contrary to the dominance of downward transfers in developed countries between young adult children and their old parents, many children help old parents economically in Korea. Tobit models of downward and upward transfers indicate that parents with more economic resources and home ownership and children with higher education levels and out of work are more likely to participate in downward transfers and that parents in economic need and with health problems and children who are older and earn money are more likely to participate in upward transfers.

The precarious financial situation of many elderly women in developed countries is a well-established fact. Nonetheless, in depth insight in the causes remains largely absent. Social policy researchers have analyzed the effects of pension regulations on poverty among the elderly. However, they have failed to consider the importance of sequence, timing and interaction of family and career events. On the other hand, the interaction between these events is a central research theme for demographers and family sociologists alike. Nonetheless, in this strand of the literature, the elderly have remained largely overlooked. Moreover, the interaction of these events with pension regulations is barely considered, even though pensions are the main income source for the elderly. In response to this dearth of knowledge, we argue it is essential to investigate how family trajectories, career trajectories and pension regulations interact. It is only by investigating these interactions that poverty among elderly women can adequately be accounted for. We use unique administrative data of more than 100.000 people older than 60 living in Belgium and their family members. The elderly’s poverty risk is linked to over 45 years of career variables and socio-demographic variables.

This paper aims at analyzing the Chinese urban elders' demand for old-age economic support as well as its influential factors, by using the data from the Survey of Urban and Rural Elderly Population in China 2006. The survey result reveals that most of the urban elders (38%) depend mainly on children support, the second most of the elders (33%) choose "joining the social pension".

The multi-factor analysis result shows elders demand for old-age economic support is greatly affected by "whether the elder have social pension". Besides, other main effects on the demand relate to their income level, children's income level, number of children, filial piety of the children, who makes financial decision of the family, and whether the children give money to their old parents. However, sex and martial status of the elders are not significant to explain their economic support demand in the Logistic regression model. According to the demographic trend of China, this paper believes the proportion of the urban elders who depend mainly on family support will continuously decrease.

【key words】ageing of population, economic support, regional factors

This study presents a new vision for the welfare of the elderly in the Korean society through a novel alternative solution to the problems of the old family supported welfare system for the elderly based on the traditional concept of the filial piety, being surfaced in the face of the changing life style of the people in today’s industrialized, urban Korean society.
This is also to provide the basic arguments necessary to create in the long run an innovative model for a new elderly welfare system cooperatively operated by the combined resources of the family, the business, the state, and the local society, overcoming the limitation of the old family based support of the elderly still prevalent in Korea today.
The present study thus is an inquiry into a fresh alternative approach to the problem of producing a promising alternative elderly support system in Korea through a creative alliance of the family, the business, the government, and the local society utilizing their available resources.