Comparative Study of the Elderly in Asia Research

This paper examines patterns of intergenerational support, with a key focus on the gender of the providers, in four countries in East and Southeast Asia: Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand. These countries make an interesting set for comparison because they are characterized by varying levels of social and economic development and different family systems, with the Philippines and Thailand having bilateral family systems, Taiwan having a strong patrilineal family system, and Singapore having a mix of the two systems across ethnic groups. Analyses are based on a recent round of national surveys of older persons that were conducted in each country. The results reveal distinctive patterns and varying levels of flexibility across countries with respect to the gender of coresident married children, but only modest gender patterning in the provision of financial and material support and exchanges of visits. Datasets used: • Philippine Elderly Survey, 1996 • National Survey of Senior Citizens in Singapore, 1995 • Survey of the Middle Aged and Elderly in Taiwan, 1996 • Survey of the Welfare of the Elderly in Thailand, 1995 ______________________________________________________________ About the Authors: Mary Beth Ofstedal, Assistant Research Scientist, Population Studies Center, University of Michigan John Knodel, Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Michigan Napaporn Chayovan, Associate Professor, College of Population Studies, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand Acknowledgements: The research on which this report is based was supported in part by a research grant from the U.S. National Institute on Aging (NIA), "Rapid Demographic Change and the Welfare of the Elderly," (#R37AG07637). The analysis benefited from discussions and assistance during a workshop sponsored by this grant in Bangkok in February 1998 which was attended by Angelique Chan from Singapore, Florio Arguillas, Josefina Natividad and Aurora Perez from the Philippines, and Yi-Li Chuang and HuiSheng Lin from Taiwan, in addition to the authors. Despite likely impacts of demographic and socioeconomic change on the situation of the elderly throughout Asia, the family has been and continues to be the primary provider of old-age support. It is interesting to note, however, that there is significant variation in the structure of the family and support systems in different countries and regions within Asia. These structural features have strongly conditioned patterns of intergenerational support, particularly with regard to defining which family members participate in exchanges of various types of support. A key structural difference across countries in Asia, and the one that we focus on in this paper, has to do with the nature of gender relations in the family. As Karen Mason (1992) noted in a review article about family change and support of the elderly in Asia, two major types of family systems prevail: the patrilineal/patriarchal systems found in East Asia and the northern tier of South Asia, which stress the responsibility of sons (and their wives) for caring for and supporting parents, and the more flexible bilateral systems found in Southeast Asia and the southern tier of South Asia, in which daughters play an equally or more important role than sons. Although a number of important studies of intergenerational support in Asia have emerged in the past decade (e.g. Chang and Ofstedal, 1991; DaVanzo and Chan, 1994; Hermalin, Chang, Lin, Lee and Ofstedal, 1990; Knodel, Chayovan and Siriboon, 1992; Martin, 1989), these studies have not focused on gender patterns of support per se. Important exceptions include studies of intergenerational coresidence, financial and material transfers, and/or assistance with household tasks in Japan (Hirosima, 1992), Taiwan (Hermalin, Ofstedal and Lee, 1992; Lee, Parish and Willis, 1994) and Vietnam (Knodel, Friedman, Anh and Cuong, 1998). In contrast, studies of gender differences in intergenerational support in the United States abound (see edited volume by Dwyer and Coward, 1992; and articles by Brody, Johnsen, Fulcomer, and Lang, 1983; Dwyer and Coward, 1991; Finley, 1989; Horowitz, 1985; Houser, Berkman and Bardsley, 1985; Spitze and Logan, 1990; Stoller, 1983); however, the vast majority of those studies have focused on the provision of assistance with personal care and/or household management tasks, as opposed to the broader types of material and social support. These studies have consistently found sharp gender differences in caregiving by children, whereby daughters play a more central role overall in the day to day personal and routine care of their aged parents and sons tend to take on a more managerial role and/or provide material as opposed to hands-on assistance. This paper describes gender patterns of intergenerational support in four countries in East and Southeast Asia: the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand. The countries included in this study make an interesting set for comparison in that they represent varying levels of social and economic development and they fall on both sides of the family-system divide. In particular, both the Philippines and Thailand have predominantly bilateral family systems, Taiwan has a strong patrilineal/patriarchal family system, and Singapore has a mix of the two systems across the major ethnic groups (Chinese, Malay and Indian). The types of support we examine in this paper include coresidence, a looser form of coresidence which we refer to as quasi-coresidence, social support in the form of visiting, and financial and material support. Most research that has been conducted on intergenerational support involving elderly parents has tended to focus on support received by the parents as opposed to support provided by parents to children and other kin, and that is the focus that we adopt in this article. We recognize, however, that it is likely that there is a strong bi-directional flow of support between parents and children, even for parents who have reached advanced ages. Furthermore, exchange of support across generations is a dynamic process and the propensity for a person of either generation to provide support is likely to be influenced by exchanges that have occurred at some point in the past or are anticipated to occur in the future. Although the surveys that we use in our analysis provide the data needed to address some of these issues, their treatment is beyond the scope of the current paper.