Filial Care Research Articles

Frictions between familism and neoliberalism: exploring the intergenerational ambivalence narratives of migrant older parents in China

ABSTRACT This article explores the narratives of Chinese migrant older parents and addresses how the interplay between familism and neoliberalism, as structural forces behind older parents migrating to reside with their adult children, influences their perceptions of intergenerational relationships in the context of internal migration in China. Adopting the intergenerational ambivalence perspective, this study thus analyzes the connections between participants’ lived experiences and the structural forces and processes. The empirical data are drawn from 16 semi-structured interviews with 10 migrant older parents in Shenzhen. Through narrative and thematic analyzes, three main areas of intergenerational ambivalence are identified, which were expressed through how they talk about: (1) their adult children; (2) the childcare work they provided; (3) their expectation about filial care. These narratives highlight a strong focus on the younger generation’s socioeconomic success, with older parents inscribing themselves the role of supporting them to achieve this goal. This entails a change in the norms that regulate intergenerational relationships in contrast to the traditional direction of obligation around filial piety. Furthermore, the analysis demonstrates that the intergenerational ambivalences experienced by migrant older parents are created by their unfavourable positions across two incompatible systems: the neoliberal state-capitalist economy and unchanged family-based welfare/care regime.

Investigating the Influencing Factors of the Purchase Intention of the Continuing Care Retirement Community: A Case Study of Shenzhen

China officially entered the aging society in 2000, witnessing a rapid surge in demand for senior care services. In response, the real estate industry introduced the concept of Continuing Care Retirement Communities (CCRCs). The relationship between this model and complex risks in urban security resilience encompasses various factors, including filial care, demand for senior care, and urban sustainable development. The strategic layout and planning of CCRC enhance the security resilience of urban operational systems in the face of intricate senior care risks. However, the development and operation of CCRCs have encountered the challenge of sluggish project progress, primarily due to a lack of robust purchase intention. This study investigates the factors influencing the purchase intention of CCRCs in mainland China, using the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) as the foundational theoretical model. Additionally, three contextual constructs (economic cost, product performance, and external stimuli) were introduced to form the initial model. Based on the initial model, six factors were identified and nine hypotheses were proposed. A questionnaire survey was conducted to collect data, and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) analysis was employed to test the proposed hypotheses. The results indicate that consumers’ purchase intention of CCRCs is primarily influenced by product performance and subjective norms, followed by economic cost. At the same time, external stimuli have a significant indirect effect on it.

THE “GOOD” CAREGIVER: DOES FILIAL PIETY NECESSITATE SELF-SACRIFICE?

Abstract Family caregiving policies that amplify the enactment of ‘filial piety’ – respect and care towards parents, grandparents and older persons – are especially pronounced in Asian societies, where caring for older family members is culturally expected and appraised yet is associated with stress and burden. Numerous studies have shown that fulfilment of filial piety contributes to better psychological outcomes for caregivers while mismatched filial expectations contribute to poorer psychological outcomes. However, few studies acknowledge how filial care varies according to individual resources and socio-cultural contexts. We seek to understand how family caregivers negotiate their self-determination through filial care, which contributes to positive and negative caregiving experiences. We conducted in-depth interviews with 34 caregivers of older persons with functional limitations in Singapore, purposefully selected based on varying positive and negative caregiving experiences. For caregivers with predominantly negative caregiving experiences, filial care was seen as an act of sacrifice and expectation of duty, with low autonomy to exercise self-determination. In comparison, caregivers with predominantly positive caregiving experiences described filial care as an act of sincere love cultivated through close relationships with their care-recipient, and aligned to their self-determination. Strong family support was also evident in the latter. Treating filial piety as a ‘natural desire to care for parents’ obscures efforts required to amplify positive caregiving experiences while normalisation of self-sacrifice and suffering hinders caregivers from expressing burden and accessing support. A nuanced understanding of how caregivers negotiate filial care can inform policy interventions to empower caregivers and care-recipients and enhance intergenerational relationships.

Filial Care and Familial Postmemory. On the Uncanny and Affective Intermediality of Analogue Media Use in Recent European Documentaries

Abstract Found footage filmmaking, or “archiveology” (Russell, 2008), has become a contemporary mode of understanding the collective past. At the same time, in some recent European documentaries we have a more intimate, personal use of archival (and animated) images. They construct two-strand narrative structures showing both the trauma of losing a parent and the excavation of the unresolved traumas of those ailing and passing. In Us against Us (Noi î mpotriva noastr ă, Andra Tarara, 2021) the director/daughter initiates a highly reflexive video dialogue with her schizophrenic father. Fragile Memory (Крихка пам‘ять, Igor Ivanko, 2022) is a grandson’s story about a former cameraman affected by Alzheimer’s. Postmemory and post-generational trauma work is in the focus of Aliona van der Horst’s films like Love is Potatoes (2017), in which her own mother’s emigration story is recovered through intermediality, or Turn Your Body to the Sun (2021), in which the digitally manipulated archival footage accompanies a woman’s quest for her father’s repressed memories. These are all medially hybrid films, which rely on the affordances of intermediality, and which combine present day footage with images from personal or public archives. Archiveology becomes in these films an affective tool in caring for family, and a reflection on the precarity of life and memory in general.1

Negotiating filial care in transitions: an ethnographic study of family involvement in China’s nursing homes

Based on ethnographic research conducted in two nursing homes in China, this article examines how institutional eldercare reshapes the expectations and practices of filial piety. It finds that families accept institutional care as a solution to the elderly care deficit. They expect a new division of care between labor and love, assigned to paid care workers and family members, respectively. This ideal of care division is rooted in the “intimate turn” in Chinese family life. Nevertheless, many family members go beyond this care division and remain deeply involved in nursing homes. On the one hand, adult children take on the responsibility to manage surrogate caretakers to improve the quality of care. On the other hand, they continue to provide personal care and companionship. Sharing family time is made the highest priority, especially in the face of impending death. This study goes beyond the binary division between commercial care and family care and sheds light on the transformation of filial piety in the commodification of eldercare in contemporary China.

Narrating the caring fatigue: stories of the ambivalence of filial care in a caregivers’ self-help group in Italy

This article shows how, within a caregivers’ self-help group in Emilia-Romagna, Italy, the narrative of caring fatigue was mobilised to question and negotiate local normative discourses and social norms on affective states and family care responsibilities. The neoliberal discourse on family caregiving in Italy assumes that it comes from authentic affective states and mutual understanding. By showing how intergenerational obligations and shifting parent-child hierarchies constrained the building up of caregiving relations, the narrative of caring fatigue allowed participants to explain the ambivalence they perceived about their filial responsibilities. Therefore, this narrative legitimised the choice of preserving caregivers’ wellbeing and delegating aspects of care. This paper argues that stories of caring fatigue contradict the ideal model of family care that shapes academic and institutional discourses. Nevertheless, they play an important role in sustaining caregiver endurance.

A Cross-Case Analysis on Filial Care Assumption among Filipino Adults

the Filial Care Theory which states that the older person’s vulnerability stimulates the caring behaviors from the family members. Methods: Through a multiple case study approach using cross-case synthesis, various situations that led five adult Filipino children into assuming filial care duties and the kinds of support involved in the said filial care interaction were explored. Results: It was determined that filial care involves sentience among family members, a desire to sustain the older person, strengthened family support, affinity, solidarity and compassion, and a commitment to return a past favor. Discussion: Filial care is a response to the older person’s needs and limitations. Apart from the older person’s vulnerability, it was deduced that filial care requires both the older persons and their adult children to be emotionally vulnerable towards one another.

Care for Aging Parents in Social Advertising: Peculiarities of Perception of Teenagers and Their Parents

The article presents the results of a study of social advertising broadcasting the value of adult children's care for their elderly parents. In order to determine the potential impact of advertising on the consumer, a psychological analysis of two commercials was carried out: “Main Investment” and “What Will Remain”. It is shown that the traditional value of “filial care” has lost its unconditional character and is understood as a “proportional response” to the care previously shown by parents for their children. To test hypotheses about the different effects on the viewer of advertising narratives presenting “positive” and “negative” models of “care”, as well as the fact that social attitudes and personal experience of interaction in the consumer family influence their understanding of the situations depicted in advertising. We conducted an empirical study with 203 participants: 124 adolescents (M = 14, SD = 2.1) and 79 parents (M = 43, SD = 12.2). Features of perception of advertising images were carried out using the method of specialized semantic differential. To assess intergenerational relationships in the families of the subjects, the “Methodology for analyzing family relationships” and the questionnaire “Adolescents about parents” were used. The obtained data was analyzed using mathematical statistics methods. The study found a transformation of traditional ideas of sub-sprouts about parents - their images are endowed with low values of “caring” and “prestige”. We found the dependence of semantic assessment of advertising images of adult children and their elderly parents in need of help on the experience of child-parent relations in the consumer family. We revealed that in the perception of parents, “care” and “prestige” have an inverse relationship. We argue that the “positive” model of the discursive formula of “reciprocal care” implemented in social advertising solves the problem of translating the value of caring for elderly parents to a greater extent than “negative”. Keywords. Social advertising, media, elderly parents, teenagers, mother, father, attitude, semantics, narrative, image.

Is filial care for older adults in Nigeria threatened? Examining concerns from adult offspring providing care

Filial care for older adults is a normative family practice in Nigeria, heralded by offspring. However, as families continuously evolve away from the extended structure to more nuclear setups, with women contesting traditional domestic roles, strong concerns about filial care are emerging. Our qualitative study investigated filial care using data elicited from 32 adult offspring in Enugu, Nigeria. Narratives reveal that filial care remains the most culturally acceptable and ‘feasible’ care option for older adults in Nigeria. Notwithstanding challenges constraining the efficiency of filial care, such as changing gender roles, an increase in the ages of adult offspring, uncooperative older adults, deplorable economic conditions, and living arrangements, filial care for older adults abound. Although contested, the paid care option within filial setup was reasonably considered by the participants as an important measure to address the challenges of filial care. In all, participants were unsure about the future of government assistance, hence there is a need to improve filial care by strategically adopting policy and programme directions, with social workers playing potentially pivotal roles.

Transnational migration, local specificities and reconfiguring eldercare through ‘market transfer’ in Kerala, India

ABSTRACT Select research has indicated that widespread migration is catalysing the novel reimagining of eldercare and transformative changes in the local eldercare economy in the Global South. Yet research on ageing and migration from the South has largely focused on transnational care practices of providing emotional support and economic remittances. Drawing on ethnographic research among the privileged and affluent community of Syrian Christians of Kerala, India, I argue for a diverse and complex Southern reconfiguration of eldercare at the intersection of migration, which also includes ‘market transfer’ of proximate care services as reciprocal filial care. Further, the paper illuminates how specificities of migration, ageing and care are locally nuanced and shape diverse transnational care practices. In turn, transnational care strategies employed by the migrants to overcome distances transform the local eldercare economy and (re)produce class-stratified eldercare spaces. Through the study of a privileged community, the paper highlights the increasing marketisation of the eldercare landscape in the sending countries of the South and contributes to furthering diversified understandings of the ageing-migration nexus.

Grandparenting, filial piety, and well-being of Chinese-American older adults

This study explores the association between grandparent caregiving by Chinese-American older adults and their perception of filial care and respect (i.e. filial piety) received from their adult children. Drawing on arguments regarding norms of altruism and reciprocity based on social exchange theory in the context of intergenerational relationships, this study examines whether more active engagement in grandparenting results in higher levels of filial piety among adult children and whether that in turn results in better well-being through reducing loneliness. It uses data from Population Study of Chinese Elderly in Chicago, a survey of the well-being of Chinese-American older adults in Chicago. The results show that more hours of grandparent caregiving relate to higher amounts of filial piety in the view of older parents. However, more pressure to take care of a grandchild from adult children reduces perceived filial piety. Furthermore, grandparent caregiving can reduce loneliness among older adults, and receipt of filial piety mediates the association. Discussion focuses on how grandparent caregiving can strengthen intergenerational relationships while contributing to psychological well-being among older Chinese-American adults. This research contributes to the discussion of normative aspects of the intergenerational solidarity theory and holds policy implications for the promotion of well-being among Chinese-American older adults based on their grandparenting practices.

Issues of Elder Care among Migrant Workers in Contemporary Rural China: Filial Piety Redefined from a Foucauldian Perspective

ABSTRACT This article reports on research that explored rural migrant workers’ experiences of returning to their hometown to provide care for elderly parents diagnosed with cancer. The authors used a culturally integrated approach to Foucauldian discourse analysis to consider how 24 participants narrated their experiences of care in China. The discourse of care demonstrated a strong commitment to filial piety despite their unique care challenges, and this commitment was bolstered by discourses that emphasized how much parents had sacrificed, as well as by a persistent forgetting of experiences or background details that suggested any lack of parental sacrifice in recent Chinese history. Policy implications related to enhancing filial care are discussed.

Sustainable Care in a Familialist Regime: Coping with Elderly Care in Slovenia

In countries with prevalent family care and less developed care services, it is important to understand the ways families cope with the care needs of their frail family members as part of policy learning to make care systems more sustainable. Filial care is a vital element of family care, yet is significantly restrained by the involvement of carers in the labour market; unequal gender distribution of the care burden; and insufficient recognition of, and policy support, for family care. This article considered the issue of the sustainability of elderly care in a familialist country, Slovenia, by identifying the coping strategies families adopt for the provision of care. To this end, in-depth qualitative data based on a purposeful sample of 55 community-resident users of social home care services and their 55 family carers were used. We identified five external coping strategies: use of formal care services, use of extended family network, use of wider community network, cohabitation, and home adjustments. Among internal strategies, we detected work-related adjustments; abandoning leisure activities; abandoning vacations; establishing new routines; accepting and finding satisfaction in care; increased psychological distress, such as worries and overburdening; and some unmet care recipient needs. Very few strategies may be described as supported by policy actions, despite such support being essential for increasing the sustainability of the family-based care model.

Changing Shapes of Care: Expressions of Filial Piety among Second-generation Chinese in the Netherlands

This study explored perceptions of filial care among second-generation Chinese immigrants in the Netherlands. The provision of filial help or care can be regarded as a cultural phenomenon known as filial piety and it can be considered within the broad scope of caregiving as “family care”. Fifteen interviews were conducted, and a thematic analysis was applied. The findings showed that care was given in the form of language brokering, information inquiry, home visits, and facilitative and social support. Care was perceived as a moral duty among the participants and was grounded in their perceived sense of responsibility. The participants’ perspectives on current and future care included practical and normative considerations for meeting parental needs, and included opinions based on filial piety norms. In conclusion, this study showed that filial piety, specifically filial care, is still relevant to the younger immigrant Chinese community in the Netherlands.

Perceived availability of future care and depressive symptoms among older adults in China: evidence from CHARLS

BackgroundMajor concerns have arisen about the challenges facing China in providing sufficient care to its older population in light of rapid population ageing, changing family structure, and considerable rates of internal migration. At the family level, these societal changes may produce care uncertainty which may adversely influence the psychological wellbeing of older individuals. This paper applies social support and control theories to examine the relationship between perceived availability of future care and psychological wellbeing of older adults in China, and how this relationship is moderated by economic insufficiency, health vulnerability, and urban/rural context.MethodsAnalyses are based on data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, a multi-panel nationally representative household survey of the Chinese population aged 45 years and older. Data are taken from 2013 and 2011 waves of the study, with an initial sample size around 17,000, in which around 11,000–14,000 respondents are used for our final regression model. The score of depressive symptoms was measured in both waves with the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D10), and perceived availability of future care was measured in 2013 by asking respondents the question “Suppose that in the future, you need help with basic daily activities like eating or dressing, do you have relatives or friends (besides your spouse/partner) who would be willing and able to help you over a long period of time (yes/no)?”ResultsMultivariate regression analysis revealed that uncertainty regarding future care support was associated with greater depressive symptoms even after controlling for factors confounded with care uncertainty such as family structure, socio- economic status, and a lagged measure of depression. Further, older adults without an anticipated source of care faced double jeopardy in their depressive symptoms if they also experienced functional limitations.ConclusionsConsidering rapid aging of the Chinese population, anticipated increases in chronic disease burden, and possible attenuation of filial care, this analysis suggests that older adults in China may increasingly face health and social conditions detrimental to their mental health. Polices that remedy these concerns should be discussed, developed and implemented.

Personal care expectations: Photovoices of Chinese ageing adults in Hong Kong.

The increasing ageing population contributes to growing demands for personal care that fulfils ageing adults’ preferences and expectations. This study explored Chinese ageing adults’ expected forms and sources of future personal care and the factors influencing care expectations. A qualitative photovoice research method – which integrated photography, interviews and group discussions – was used for data collection between January and April 2016. Through purposive sampling, 36 community‐residing participants aged 51–80 years took photographs that captured personal care preferences or expectations within individual, familial and societal contexts. Participants described feelings of worry, uncertainty and unpreparedness for future care needs and arrangements. They preferred practicing self‐care for as long as possible and remaining in their homes and communities (“ageing in place”) through support from assistive technologies, family members or home‐based and community services. Institutional care was regarded as the last resort. The findings reflected discrepancies between ageing adults’ care preferences and realities and their ambivalent attitudes towards filial care when switching between roles. Confronted with the increasingly unreliable family care, financial resources and insufficient community services, participants anticipated receiving institutional care that would be less satisfying or that they would dislike. As caregivers, ageing adults displayed strong commitment to filial obligations, whereas when perceiving themselves as care receivers they felt that they could not expect care from their children because of practical considerations. By understanding preferred care forms and sources, actors can devote resources, policies and interventions to support self‐care through proactive planning and technological advancement, foster “ageing in place” through family and community care, and improve institutional care to enable ageing with dignity.

Responsabilidade filial no cuidado aos pais idosos: estudo misto

Resumo Objetivo: Examinar a relação entre atitudes de responsabilidade filial e comportamentos de cuidado dos filhos cuidadores. Métodos: Estudo de métodos misto com triangulação concomitante de dados com 100 filhos cuidadores de idosos vinculados a serviços de atenção primária. Na etapa quantitativa, para avaliação das atitudes de responsabilidade filial, foram aplicadas as Escalas de Expectativa Filial e Dever Filial. Os comportamentos de cuidado foram avaliados por meio do apoio instrumental, emocional e financeiro, companhia e visita. Na etapa qualitativa utilizou-se questões abertas sobre atitudes e comportamentos de cuidado. Foram feitas análises inferencial e temática e triangulação dos dados. Resultados: Apoio financeiro e emocional apresentaram associação com Dever Filial (p=0,050; p=0,001) e Expectativa Filial (p=0,013; p=0,023), respectivamente. Na etapa qualitativa estes comportamentos filiais emergiram como sobrecarga financeira e ensinamentos para seus próprios filhos também os cuidarem na velhice. Companhia e visita foram associadas apenas com Dever Filial (p=0,015), de forma semelhante ao encontrado nos depoimentos relativos a ser um dever natural e satisfação de estar presente na vida dos pais. Não houve associação entre atitudes de responsabilidade filial e ajuda nas atividades de vida diária, divergente dos achados da categoria “Dificuldades em ser filho cuidador”. Conclusão: Compreender atitudes e comportamentos de cuidado contribui para melhoria da qualidade da atenção dos profissionais que assistem essa população.

DEPENDENT INDEPENDENCE: REFRAMING AGING AND CAREGIVING AFTER CHINA’S ONE-CHILD POLICY

Global aging has led to substantive demands for caregiving. In China, the country’s birth control policy and recent economic downturn have exacerbated the situation. Given the decreasing care they have received, older Chinese online users 65-74 years of age from single-child families, however, have demonstrated more positive attitudes than negative ones—expressing satisfaction and speaking highly of their adult children’s filial care. Why older Chinese come to appreciate their adult children’s filial performance? Building upon the concept of “regeneration” (Cole and Durham, 2007), I propose the term “dependent independence” to highlight the mutually constitutive parent-adult children relations in China’s single-child families. Employing a relational approach to aging and care in China, I analyze online posts from China’s most populous information-sharing platform, Zhihu. As the major cause of the care crisis in China, the One-Child Policy, I argue, creates the solution at the same time by modernizing Chinese families such that new care values and preference, specifically affective bonds and independence, have become dominant. I first demonstrate that this sample of older Chinese adults have shifted care preferences from physical support to affective bonds. I then analyze their reformulation of care values from servility to older adults to adult children’s independence and individual success. Revealing the changing values and preference of caregiving and family relations in China, this paper reminds us of what kind of future we aspire to, and what kind of values we cling to no matter as an adult child or an older adult.

WHANAUNGATANGA AND FILIAL PIETY: INTERGENERATIONAL EXCHANGES IN CONTEMPORARY MAORI AND KOREAN CULTURES

Every culture has its own tradition of intergenerational exchange based on accepted norms, while the meanings of traditional filial values have evolved over time. This paper aims to identify the various forms of filial care, support and respect for older people in Maori and Korean cultures, and reconceptualise current ways of intergenerational exchanges in both physical and virtual contexts. Data were collected through a qualitative inquiry framework consisting of 32 individual interviews and 5 ethnographic observations in New Zealand and South Korea. Thematic analysis of the data was used to identify themes and patterns from the participants’ perspectives and experiences in the multilingual research context. In this cross-cultural study, for Māori participants, whanaungatanga (family relationships) was recognised as a core value that places whanau (family) at the centre of whakapapa (human and non-human relations). For Korean participants, their tradition of filial piety has continued to constitute a major component of familism mindsets and practices, while their ability to support their parents and maintain connections to their ancestors varied. Being knowledgeable about the traditional values of intergenerational solidarity helped generations feel connected and supported by each other, although both monetary and non-monetary support for one’s elders has come under strain due to the impact of changes in family ties and social dynamics. Technological developments have reshaped traditional filial practices, offering new ways of intergenerational exchanges. Redefining whanaungatanga and filial piety can provide a theoretical basis for developing the concept of extended social work through avoiding excessive individualism and culture-blind approaches.

Shifting duties: becoming ‘good daughters’ through elder care practices in transnational families from Kerala, India

This article investigates the influence of international migration on the filial norms of elder care in transnational families of Syrian Christian nurses from Kerala, South India. We suggest that exploring transnational elder care practices brings to light complex changes in gender dynamics within kin relations. Using the material semiotic approach, we analyze care in terms of everyday practices in which not just people, but also technologies are involved as active participants. We argue that as they are tied to international migration, money and information and communication technologies (ICTs) co-shape new norms of filial care by transforming the normative expectations of ‘good daughters’. This article reveals how among Keralite transnational nurse families, ‘good daughters’ may increase their bargaining power with their in-laws, specifically in relation to caring for their own parents, and how this may also influence the position of men as husbands and sons-in-law.