Abstract

This study examined intergenerational contact and financial support exchange between parents and each of their non-coresident married children. Prior qualitative work has suggested that increased contact between parents and their married daughters may indicate a decline in patrilineal norms in contemporary Korean families. Using a nationally representative sample, this study investigated if married daughters engage in similar levels of intergenerational contact and financial support exchange with their parents in contrast to their married brothers (first-born sons in particular). The data were drawn from the first wave of the Korean Longitudinal Study of Ageing (KLoSA, 2006). For analyses, individuals who had at least one non-coresident married child were selected, resulting in the analytic sample of 3,950 parents with 10,947 non-coresident married children. Both regression with robust standard errors and sibling fixed effects regression models were estimated using the reg and xtreg procedures in STATA. Residential proximity and sociodemographic characteristics of both parents and children were controlled in analyses. Findings suggest that, overall, parents report more frequent face-to-face contact with and financial support from their first-born sons in comparison to other sons and daughters. Daughters, on the other hand, were found to engage in more frequent contact via phone call, mail, or email with their parents. In conclusion, we did not find a strong evidence to support the contention that patrilineal norms have softened in contemporary Korean families to the extent that has been suggested in qualitative studies.

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