Page 100 - IJPS-3-1

International Journal of Population Studies

RESEARCH ARTICLE
Intergenerational support among

widowed older adults in China

1*
Zhenmei Zhang and I-Fen Lin 2
1 Department of Sociology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, USA
2 Department of Sociology, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH, USA

Abstract: With the rapid aging of the Chinese population, growing attention has been
given to old-age support. Widowed older adults constitute a particularly vulnerable
population because the loss of a spouse can lead to financial hardships and emotional
distress. We used data from the 2002 Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey
to examine multiple dimensions of old-age support among a nationwide sample of
widowed old adults ages 65 and older (N = 10,511). The results show that Chinese
widows and widowers rely heavily on their adult children, particularly sons and
daughters-in-law, for financial, instrumental, and emotional support. Widowed older
adults’ needs and the number of children are the most significant predictors of old-
age support. Widowed older adults with multiple marriages have a lower likelihood
of receiving financial assistance, sick care, and emotional support from their children
compared to their counterparts who have married only once. There appears to be same-
gender preference in adult children’s care for their widowed parents with disabilities.
Keywords: financial transfer; coresidence; emotional support; caregiver; marital
history, daughters-in-law; gender; CLHLS

1 Introduction
ARTICLE INFO
Received: December 21, 2016
Accepted: February 10, 2017 Due to a dramatic reduction in fertility levels and significant improvement in life
Published Online: February 15, expectancy over the past four decades, China is aging rapidly. Projections suggest
2017
that the proportion of individuals ages 60 and older will increase from 10.2% of the
*CORRESPONDING AUTHOR Chinese population in 2000 to about 25.1% in 2030. In this context, an increasing
Zhenmei Zhang, Department
of Sociology, Michigan State number of older Chinese adults will face the inevitable and difficult transition from
University, 509 E. Circle Drive, married life to widowhood. Among those ages 60 and older, about 16.2% of men and
East Lansing, MI, 48824
zhangz12@msu.edu 45.9% of women were widowed in 2000, based on a national survey (He, Sengupta,
Zhang et al., 2007). The widowed older population is expected to grow rapidly in
st
CITATION the first half of the 21 century and reach about 118.4 million by 2050 (Wang and
Zhang Z and Lin I-F (2017). Ge, 2013). Widowed older adults are a particularly vulnerable population because
Intergenerational support
among widowed older adults in bereavement often leads to financial hardships, poor health, and loneliness (Jadhav
China. International Journal of and Weir, 2017; Lloyd-Sherlock, Corso, and Minicuci, 2015). Widowhood also brings
Population Studies, 3(1): 94–109.
doi: 10.18063/IJPS.20 17.01.003. changes in family dynamics, as the widowed tend to be more dependent on their
adult children and to receive more support from them compared to their still-married
Copyright: © 2017 Zhenmei counterparts (Ha, Carr, Utz et al., 2006; Kalmijn, 2007; Korinek, Zimmer, and Gu,
Zhang and I-Fen Lin. This is an
Open Access article distributed 2011).
under the terms of the Creative In developed countries, numerous studies on widowhood have been carried out over
Com mons Attribution-Non-
Commercial 4.0 Inter national the past few decades, examining short- and long-term adjustments to spousal loss and
License (http://creativecommons. the role of children, relatives, friends, and the community in helping the widowed in
org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), permit-
ting all non-commercial use, later life (Carr, Nesse, and Wortman, 2006; Sasson and Umberson, 2014). In sharp
distribution, and reproduction in contrast, little research on widowhood has been carried out in China until quite
any medium, provided the original
work is properly cited. recently, and it is typically treated as a control variable in research on intergenerational
94 International Journal of Population Studies 2017, Volume 3, Issue 1