Research On The Impact Of Residential Arrangements On The Older Adults' Intergenerational Support

Based on the social background of miniaturization and nuclearization of family structure in China,this study uses modernization theory of families to analyze the changes of intergenerational support which includes financial support,care-giving as well as emotional support and the reasons for these changes with different residential arrangements.The main objective is to explore whether the changes of intergenerational support in current Chinese families follow the mode of modernization in western families,which means that with an increasing number of nuclear families in China,intergenerational support will decline.If it is not the case,Chinese intergenerational family support has any specific characteristics in different family structures.In the research process,this study uses the empirical research method of quantitative data analysis to build multiple linear regression models to analyze the impact of the key independent variable,residential modes,on the different aspects of older parents' intergenerational support.The research result shows that residential arrangements in China have influenced the financial support,care-giving and emotional support between older parents and their adult children to a certain degree,namely,the differential characters under different intergenerational residential arrangements.However,in contrast to the assumptions of modernization theory of families,this study shows that under the more modernized intergenerational residential arrangement,older parents and their adult children can maintain the higher level of financial support and emotional support.Based on the analytical results above,this study reaches a conclusion that in modern Chinese families,intergenerational support between older parents and their adult children does not change in the way of social modernization,whereas in some aspects of family life,the older generation and the younger generation may show high cohesion and be connected more closely.Even in Chinese rural areas with lower level of modernization,older parents and their children do not always show higher level of intergenerational support in every aspect.