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Informal care provision across multiple generations in China

Informal care provision across multiple generations in China
Informal care provision across multiple generations in China
With increasing life expectancy, changes in family structure and, most recently, the relaxation of the hitherto strict family planning policies, understanding how mid-life individuals support multiple generations, particularly their older parents and younger grandchildren, is of increasing research and policy significance in China. This paper analyses data from the 2011 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) to examine the characteristics of Chinese midlife individuals aged 45-64 who are potentially being ‘sandwiched’ between providing care to older parents/parents-in-law and/or younger grandchildren (under age 16). Binary logistic and multinomial regression models shed light on the factors associated with providing support to one generation or multiple generations. The results highlight that amongst the Chinese mid-life sandwich generation, 58 per cent only provide care to their young grandchildren, 23 per cent only provide care to their parents/parents-in-law, whilst 15 per cent are simultaneously supporting both generations. Rather than acting as competing demands upon the mid-lifers’ time, the multivariate analysis provides evidence that the provision of intergenerational care is complementary, with caring for grandchildren increasing the probability of also supporting one’s parents/ parents-in-law, and vice versa. However, an increase in the number of younger grandchildren has a negative impact on the care provided to older parents/parents-in-law, indicating that at higher care intensities there may be competing demands across the generations.
informal care-giving, intergenerational relationship, sandwich generation
0144-686X
1978-2005
Falkingham, Jane
8df36615-1547-4a6d-ad55-aa9496e85519
Evandrou, Maria
cd2210ea-9625-44d7-b0f4-fc0721a25d28
Qin, Min
10d55bfb-f7e6-409a-bcc5-6d2ba1f743e8
Vlachantoni, Athina
06a52fbb-f2a0-4c81-9fbc-d6efc736c6cb
Falkingham, Jane
8df36615-1547-4a6d-ad55-aa9496e85519
Evandrou, Maria
cd2210ea-9625-44d7-b0f4-fc0721a25d28
Qin, Min
10d55bfb-f7e6-409a-bcc5-6d2ba1f743e8
Vlachantoni, Athina
06a52fbb-f2a0-4c81-9fbc-d6efc736c6cb

Falkingham, Jane, Evandrou, Maria, Qin, Min and Vlachantoni, Athina (2020) Informal care provision across multiple generations in China. Ageing & Society, 40 (9), 1978-2005. (doi:10.1017/S0144686X19000369).

Record type: Article

Abstract

With increasing life expectancy, changes in family structure and, most recently, the relaxation of the hitherto strict family planning policies, understanding how mid-life individuals support multiple generations, particularly their older parents and younger grandchildren, is of increasing research and policy significance in China. This paper analyses data from the 2011 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) to examine the characteristics of Chinese midlife individuals aged 45-64 who are potentially being ‘sandwiched’ between providing care to older parents/parents-in-law and/or younger grandchildren (under age 16). Binary logistic and multinomial regression models shed light on the factors associated with providing support to one generation or multiple generations. The results highlight that amongst the Chinese mid-life sandwich generation, 58 per cent only provide care to their young grandchildren, 23 per cent only provide care to their parents/parents-in-law, whilst 15 per cent are simultaneously supporting both generations. Rather than acting as competing demands upon the mid-lifers’ time, the multivariate analysis provides evidence that the provision of intergenerational care is complementary, with caring for grandchildren increasing the probability of also supporting one’s parents/ parents-in-law, and vice versa. However, an increase in the number of younger grandchildren has a negative impact on the care provided to older parents/parents-in-law, indicating that at higher care intensities there may be competing demands across the generations.

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Accepted/In Press date: 1 March 2019
e-pub ahead of print date: 25 April 2019
Published date: 1 September 2020
Additional Information: Funding Information: This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council Centre for Population Change (grant number ES/K007394/1); and the Economic and Social Research Council Global Challenges Research Fund Global Ageing and Long-term Care Network (GALNet) (grant number ES/P006779/1). Publisher Copyright: © Cambridge University Press 2019.
Keywords: informal care-giving, intergenerational relationship, sandwich generation

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 428629
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/428629
ISSN: 0144-686X
PURE UUID: f3485c72-2b8f-47b2-8faf-d810eda9c58a
ORCID for Jane Falkingham: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-7135-5875
ORCID for Maria Evandrou: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-2115-9358
ORCID for Min Qin: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-5941-9979
ORCID for Athina Vlachantoni: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-1539-3057

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Date deposited: 05 Mar 2019 17:30
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 04:28

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