Page 59 - IJPS-2-1

International Journal of Population Studies

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Correlates of parental satisfaction: a study of

late life family relationships in a rural county in

China

*
Yiqing Yang and Ming Wen
University of Utah, Department of Sociology, 380 S 1530 E Rm 301, Salt Lake City, UT 84112-0250, USA

Abstract: This study aims to identify correlates of satisfaction in late life parental role, using a sample of
432 older parents (not couples) aged 60 to 79 with 1,223 adult children living in one of the least devel-
oped counties of northern China. Drawing upon the symbolic interactionism perspective and Chin-
ese cultural emphasis on filial piety, we tested a parental satisfaction model including a set of vari-
ables capturing parental perceptions of relationship quality with each of their grown children (hereafter
offspring), expectations of various forms of support from offspring, and evaluations of offspring’s filial
piety (being filial). Most parents in our sample were satisfied with their parental role. Logistic regression
analysis indicated that getting along with offspring, offspring met parental expectations in terms of pro-
viding emotional, practical, and financial support, and offspring being filial were significantly associated
with parental satisfaction, respectively, net of parent and offspring characteristics. When simultaneously
examined in the full model, however, only two correlates remained significant: getting along with offspring
and offspring being filial. Offspring’s filial piety was associated with parental satisfaction in a dose-re-
sponse manner, indicating the importance of considering multiple children in a family on parental well-
being. Findings underscore the significance of parental perceptions of relationship quality with offspring
and offspring’s filial piety for parental satisfaction. Findings suggest that filial piety, a multifaceted concept
deeply rooted in Confucianism, continues to exert a strong influence today on Chinese family relationships
despite the dramatic socioeconomic and cultural transformation China has been experiencing in the past
three decades.
Keywords: relationship quality with offspring, child-to-parent support, filial piety, filial discrepancy,
multiple children, counties below poverty level

*Correspondence to: Yiqing Yang, University of Utah, Department of Sociology, 380 S 1530 E Rm 301, Salt Lake City,
UT 84112-0250, USA; Email: yiqing.yang@utah.edu

Received: October 12, 2015; Accepted: November 28, 2015; Published Online: December 3, 2015
Copyright: © 2016 Yiqing Citation: Yang Y and Wen M. (2016). Correlates of parental satisfaction: a study of late life family relationships in a
Yang and Ming Wen. This is rural county in China. International Journal of Population Studies, vol.2(1): 53–64.
an Open Access article dis- http://dx.doi.org/10.18063/IJPS.2016.01.007.
tributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribu-
tion-NonCommercial 4.0 In- 1. Introduction
ternational License (http://cre-
ativecommons.org/licenses/by- Parental satisfaction has been identified to be positively related to health and well-being in late life
nc/4.0/), permitting all non-co- (Reczek and Zhang, 2015; Umberson, 1992). Much less is known, however, about the factors asso-
mmercial use, distribution, and
reproduction in any medium, ciated with parental satisfaction, which may operate differently at the various stages of the parental
provided the original work is life course and across a variety of cultural contexts. In a review of parental satisfaction research fo-
properly cited. cusing mainly on parenting young children, Goetting (1986) concluded that “very little can be stated

International Journal of Population Studies | 2016, Volume 2, Issue 1 53