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Zhang Z and Lin I-F

China (Chappell and Kusch, 2007). Recent research in urban China found that parents
are still much more likely to live with married sons than with married daughters (Xie
and Zhu, 2009). Nonetheless, there are signs that things are changing, at least in urban
areas: Increasingly, married daughters feel strong filial obligations toward their own
parents and are playing an important role in taking care of their aging parents. Whyte
and Xu (2003) found that in Baoding, a middle-sized city, married daughters did as
much or slightly more than married sons in providing old-age support, including
personal care, cash assistance, provision of material goods, and help with household
chores. More recent studies confirmed Whyte’s findings. For example, Xie and Zhu
(2009) found that married daughters provided more financial support to older parents
than married sons, after controlling for living arrangements in urban China. Hu (2017)
found that, all else being equal, daughters provided more financial and household
assistance than sons to their parents in 2012. The changing role of daughters in old-age
support can be attributed to social changes in pension systems in cities, reduced gender
inequality, and declines in fertility (Xie and Zhu, 2009).
Less research has been done in rural China, where traditional values were stronger
than in urban China and where very few older adults have had pensions, making
them far more dependent on their adult children than are their urban counterparts.
For example, Miller (2004) found that in a rural village in Shandong province, most
older adults shared the view that sons are the providers of essential support in old
age, and the more sons one has, the greater the old-age support; married daughters
are not required to provide support, but they might visit, give gifts, or care for a sick
parent. Similarly, a recent study in rural Anhui province found that sons provided
higher levels of supports to parents than daughters (Guo, Chi, and Silverstein, 2016).
Together these results suggest that a greater number of sons and daughters would lead
to more collective incomes and better support for aging parents. A few studies showed
that parents with more children were indeed more likely to receive financial support
and gifts (Lee and Xiao, 1998; Sun, 2002). In addition, geographic proximity of adult
children to their parents is the foundation of several types of intergenerational support
including instrumental support, regular contacts, and emotional closeness. However,
little is known about whether having more children in proximity leads to more old-age
support because the effect of proximity on intergenerational support seems to vary by
individual child (Guo, Chi, and Silverstein, 2011).
Thus, we expect that widowed older adults with more sons and daughters are
more likely to receive all types of intergenerational support than those with fewer
sons and daughters. In addition, we anticipate that sons (and daughters-in-laws), on
average, play a more important role than daughters in carrying out filial obligations
due to higher rates of parents’ coresidence with married sons than daughters in
China. Nonetheless, because help with bathing, dressing, or toileting invades privacy,
widowed parents may prefer receiving personal care from same-gender children (Lee,
Dwyer, and Coward, 1993).
1.1.3 Marital History of Widowed Older Adults

Although little research in China has examined the role of older parents’ marital
history in intergenerational transfers, research in the Western context has shown that
older parents’ prior divorce and remarriage may compromise their adult children’s
filial obligation and attachment, which in turn may reduce intergenerational assistance
(Fingerman, Pillemer, Silverstein et al., 2012). In China, remarriage after either
widowhood or divorce is still frowned upon due to traditional beliefs that one should
only marry once (Chen, Dai, and Parnell, 1992). Multiple marriages of older parents
can also put strains on intergeneration relations due to property rights disputes. We
thus hypothesize that widowed older adults who had married multiple times in the past
were less likely to receive all types of intergenerational support than their counterparts
who were married only once.

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