Filial Role Research Articles

Reciprocity between older adults and their care-givers in emigrant households of Kerala, India

AbstractThe felt obligation to return a benefit, termedreciprocity, has been identified as motivating care exchanges between older adults and their younger family members. Within the context of large-scale emigration of young adults from the Indian state of Kerala, this study examines how left-behind older adults and their family care-givers recognise, interpret and give meaning to reciprocal exchanges, expectations and obligations in their care relationship. Employing a social exchange perspective, we qualitatively explore the norm of reciprocity through in-depth interviews of 48 participants (older adults and their care-givers) from emigrant households. Older adults and their care-givers identified reciprocal notions in their care exchange relationship that provided an interpretive framework for describing expectations, motivations, obligations and experiences across care-giving relationships. Spousal care-givers derived reciprocal motives and mutual care obligations through the institution of marriage. Adult children recognised filial duties and responsibilities and were in principle prepared to provide care to their parents. Reciprocating the support received and the likelihood of intergenerational transfers motivated care exchanges from adult children to their older parents. Daughters-in-law executed transferred filial roles from their emigrant husbands and bore a larger burden of care. Primary adult care-givers relied on the ‘demonstration effect’, hoping that children observe the care-giving process and emulate it later. Imbalances and non-reciprocity in the care exchange led to frustrations and threatened the care relationships.

Grandparenthood in China and Western Europe: An analysis of CHARLS and SHARE.

Grandparenthood is a fascinating research area that not only brings together three generations and multiple roles in different life domains, but also echoes social contexts across historical times and places. Comparative research on grandparenthood, however, rarely includes non-western countries. This article seeks to answer the question of how grandparenthood differs between Western Europe and China by using comparable representative surveys of older adults. We extend the literature in two ways by showing that: 1) compared to Western Europe, becoming a grandparent occurs earlier and is virtually universal in both Urban and Rural China - the probability of being a grandparent is over 80% for Chinese by the time they are 55, while the same cannot be said for Western Europeans until they are aged between 70 and 80; and 2) the role-overlaps with grandparenthood are different for older Chinese and Western Europeans. The probability of being a working grandparent in Rural China is about twice that in Western Europe, while the rate is similar to Western Europeans for Urban Chinese. Chinese grandparents are also more likely to live with their children than Western Europeans. Conversely, as all family transitions come earlier for Chinese but life expectancy is shorter, the probabilities that grandparenthood overlaps with widowhood and filial roles are similar to that in Western Europe. Taken together, this study provides an overarching picture of the characteristics of grandparenthood in different societies that are fundamental to the meaning, performance, and impact of grandparental roles and relevant to a better understanding of grandparenthood worldwide.

On the move in search of health and care: Circular migration and family conflict amongst older Turkish immigrants in Germany

This study focuses on circular migration amongst older Turkish immigrants to investigate two main questions: (1) How do perceived health and available healthcare systems in Turkey and Germany determine the structure of circular migration? (2) How is eldercare shaped by intergenerational conflict and exchange relations amongst older immigrants, their adult children in Germany, and their extended families in Turkey? Through the analysis of 40 in-depth interviews, this study finds that while Turkey offers healthier physical, psychological, and religious options, older circular migrants are more drawn to Germany because they perceive its healthcare system to be superior. Furthermore, contrary to conventional accounts, eldercare has mostly been navigated through intergenerational conflict and exchange relations, instead of family solidarity or traditional filial roles, and these conflicts and exchange principles around eldercare regulate family living arrangements across the two countries. In short, older Turkish immigrants encounter unique challenges in both their home and host countries, which promulgates their circular migration.

Family caregiving for older adults: gendered roles and caregiver burden in emigrant households of Kerala, India

ABSTRACTThe Indian state of Kerala leads the demographic transition and characteristically showcases emigration of predominantly male adult children, leaving behind parents, spouses and children. When men emigrate, gendered contexts burden women, especially spouses and daughters-in-law, with caregiving duties including elder care. Employing the social exchange perspective and drawing on in-depth interviews of left-behind caregivers to older adults in emigrant households, we explore reciprocal motives, expectations and perceptions of burden. Findings resonate gendered expectations of care and social sanction that ensure women do much of the caregiving. Daughters-in-law sacrificed careers and endured separation from husbands to transition into caregiving roles, costs borne to effectuate their husband's filial role. Perceived non-reciprocity, unbalanced exchanges and unmet expectations increased perceptions of burden for caregivers. Temporary financial autonomy could hardly alleviate perceptions of burden among women caregivers who perceived emotional and functional support exchanges from husbands, older adults themselves or other family members as supportive.

The Demography of Grandparenthood: An International Profile

This comparative study addressed three open questions about the demography of grandparenthood in contemporary societies: First, at what age do people become grandparents? Second, how is grandparenthood sequenced with other transitions in later life? Third, how long is the grandparent life stage? To answer these questions, we analyzed retrospective data from the United States (NSFH) and 24 European countries (GGS, ESS, DEAS). Using survival methods, we estimated (1) age at grandparenthood; (2) demographic overlap with parenting, worker, and filial roles; and (3) expected length of the grandparent life stage. Three central findings emerged from the analysis: First, the timing of grandparenthood varies strongly across countries. Cross-national differences in the median age at grandparenthood are larger than in age at parenthood, age at retirement, and life expectancy. Compared to the United States (49 years among women, 52 years among men), grandparenthood in Eastern Europe occurs up to three years earlier in life; in Western Europe, up to eight years later. Second, cross-national variation in the life-course context of grandparenthood is less pronounced. In all countries, grand-parenthood overlaps rarely with active parenting but frequently with worker and filial roles. Third, the length of the grandparent life stage is more strongly influenced by the timing of fertility than by the timing of mortality. The longest years of life shared with grandchildren (35 years) are expected among grandmothers in East Germany and the United States; the shortest (21 years) among grandfathers in West Germany and Spain.

The Delay of Grandparenthood: A Cohort Comparison in East and West Germany

This research explored the delay of grandparenthood in East and West Germany, investigating how the timing and life‐course context of this transition have changed across cohorts. The authors estimated the timing of passages into the grandparent role as well as demographic overlap with worker, parent, and filial roles. Data from the German Aging Survey (N = 3,628) revealed a rise of 3 months per birth cohort (1929–1958) in the median age at grandparenthood. As a result, the grandparent role decoupled almost entirely from active parenthood. Overlap with worker and filial roles was frequent and remained stable across cohorts. The findings direct attention to a neglected demographic trend that is striking in scope and precipitates change not only in the grandparent role but also in kinship structure.

2151 – Psychosocial rehabilitation: issues and problems of the developing countries

Psychosocial rehabilitation can be viewed in terms of the impact of mental illness on social functioning so as to contain the illness-related problems. In the developing countries, there is need to develop approaches for both social and occupational rehabilitation. Most developing countries lack resources to be applied to this end, e.g. state-supported welfare programmes, sheltered workshops, half-way houses, etc. Hence models need to be developed suited to the need, constraints and the philosophy of the country. The approach to supervised housing has been much developed in the West. In this regard, a basic question is the applicability and implementation of the formal, “democratic”, egalitarian set-up of such half-way homes to the traditional social structure of many developing countries. The functioning of half-way homes in the West also involves deliberate role-playing. Thus, half-way homes need to be adapted in the traditional societies. The formal structured may be replaced by an organization resembling a large family with the members assigned filial roles. Also, the dependency needs, the respect for elders and the indulgence and dependability of members towards each other can be exploited in the organization of half-way homes and for the therapeutic and health-promotive goals.

Predicting the filial behaviors of Chinese–Malaysian adolescents from perceived parental investments, filial emotions, and parental warmth and support

The present study examined the mediating role of perceived parental warmth and support in predicting Chinese Malaysian adolescents’ filial behaviors from their age, perceived parental investments, and positive filial emotions toward their parents. The effects of these predictors were examined separately for mothers and fathers. Participants included 122 Chinese adolescents (M = 13.14 years; SD = 2.22) in Malaysia. Adolescents’ perceived parental investments, filial emotions, and warmth and support from each parent were positively, and age was negatively associated with their filial behaviors. No gender differences were found. Perceived maternal warmth and support significantly mediated the effect of age, perceived investments from, and filial emotions toward mothers on adolescents’ filial behaviors, but perceived paternal warmth and support did not have a mediating role. The present study sheds light on the unique maternal versus paternal filial role, and important familial processes in Chinese-Malaysian children and adolescents from a cultural perspective.

DEMANDING DAUGHTER DUTY

The transnationalization of rural villages in the northeast region of Thailand through women's transnational marriages is reconfiguring gendered familial obligations in the form of “daughter duty.” This article shows how economic and social remittances from dutiful village daughters who are married to foreign husbands connect local villages and communities to the global, bypassing Thai nation-state institutions and agencies that have inadequately addressed the disadvantageous position of Thailand's Isan region. This transnational process depends on daughters' (and mothers') commitment to their care work and to their role as nurturers of the family, kin, schools, temples, and community—the community being seen as a familial extension in this matrilocal society. Women's upward economic mobility and their adherence to valued filial roles contribute to the community's increased favorable acceptance of women with foreign partners, leading to a greater number of transnational marriages. This article offers a nuanced reading of the so-called phua farang phenomenon (transnational marriages) based on an analysis of transformations brought about by daughter duty and the agrarian changes taking place in villages in Thailand's Isan region as the result of the rapid growth of transnational marriages.

Filial Piety and Psychological Well-Being in Well Older Chinese

Chinese older persons (N = 164) recruited from social centers responded to a survey instrument tapping the perceived filial behaviors of children (close vs not close), and the degree to which these behaviors matched personal expectations (filial discrepancy). Across all kinds of filial behaviors, providing attention when the parent was ill or distressed was perceived to be the least performed and was most discrepant with expectations. Whether the children were paying respect and whether they were providing care in times of illness or distress were most important in determining a sense of filial discrepancy in the parent. However, after functional limitations and financial strain were controlled for, only respect emerged as a consistent predictor of psychological well-being. These findings were similar whether the target was the closest child(ren) or less close children. There was no evidence that a child's overdoing his or her filial role was detrimental to the parents' well-being among the Chinese individuals in this study.

An Examination of the Trajectory of the Adult Child's Caregiving for an Elderly Parent

Study objective was to delineate stages in filial role development from recognition of responsibility to provision of help. Fifty‐three adult child‐elderly parent pairs reported on parent health status and child filial behaviors. Child concern was unrelated to parent health status; urging parent to modify health was moderately related to health status; child's action to provide help was related only to parent's functional adequacy (p < .05). Pair members' reports agreed most strongly regarding functional adequacy.

Family roles and happiness in adulthood

This study examined four important family roles: “spousal role”, “parental role”, “filial role”, “worker role” and their relationships with subjective well-being (SWB), across four family developmental stages. Four sets of variables were measured: 1. (a) personal information, including demographics as well as traditional values, extraversion, neuroticism and social desirability; 2. (b) role experiences on facets of “importance”, “rewards”, “stress” and “satisfaction”; 3. (c) social support; 4. (d) happiness and mental health. Using a purposive sampling strategy, 450 community adults in Taiwan were surveyed. Personality traits, traditional values, SES indicators, as well as role experiences all correlated with happiness. Multiple regression analyses showed that different factors predicted happiness along the four family developmental stages. The “spousal role” was the most salient for the newly-weds; the “worker role” was important to parents with young children to rear; the “worker role” as well as the “filial role” were important to parents with adolescent children; and finally, the “worker role” again became salient after children had all grown-up. Predictors of happiness for the two genders were also distinct. These results were discussed in the contexts of the traditional Chinese cultural heritage, as well as the changing social climates of the modern Taiwan. A tentative conclusion was that role experiences were important to adult happiness, and furthermore, people were flexible in defining and redefining their personal happiness as life goes on.

From Adolescent to Young Adult: A Prospective Study of Parent-Child Relations during the Transition to Adulthood

Longitudinal data from the National Survey of Families and Households were analyzed to explore continuity and change in parent-child relations as children make the transition to adulthood. Results support a social learning view that past relationship patterns continue to be played out when families enter a new life stage. The effects of earlier patterns of interaction on later relations are modest, however, and account for less than 10% of the variance in current parent-child relationships. Evidence of long-term effects was strongest in two aspects of parent-adult child relations: emotional closeness and control-conflict. The potential for discontinuity over time in parent-child relations also was examined. The hypothesis that children's transition to adult roles would bring about change in family relationships was supported, in part. Transitions to marriage, cohabitation, and fulltime employment (but not to parenthood) were associated with closer, more supportive, and less conflicted parent-adult child relations. The child's leaving home also weakened the impact of past patterns of interaction on some aspects of current relationship quality. Key Words: intergenerational relations, life course, parentchild relations. The parental and filial roles form a core part of identity over much of the adult life span (Amato, 1994; Rossi Ac Rossi, 1990; Umberson, 1992). The uniqueness of the parent-child relationship in adulthood derives, in part, from its distinctive history (White, 1993). Over the life course, the relationship evolves from a pattern of child dependence on parents to a relationship between two mature adults that is characterized by mutuality and reciprocity of care (Nydegger, 1991). A critical question is the extent to which the early history of the parent-child relationship determines its future. Do childhood patterns shape adult intergenerational relations? This is an area of human we know little about. The few studies in this area have relied mostly on retrospective reports of questionable validity. This article explores the extent of continuity in parent-child relations from adolescence to young adulthood and the life course factors that may lead to change over time. I focus on two research questions. First, do patterns of childrearing and parent-child relations during adolescence exert a long-term influence on relations between parents and adult children? Second, what are sources of discontinuity in parent-child relations? Here I focus specifically on the individual life course transitions that may precipitate relationship changes. These questions are examined in a prospective design using longitudinal data from the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH). Analyses are based on parents' reports at both times of measurement. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND LITERATURE The life course perspective on family (Bengtson & Allen, 1993; Elder, 1984) guides my approach to the study of family relationships over time. This perspective emphasizes the interdependence of the life histories of family members (Elder, 1984) and the potential for both continuity and change in patterns of family interaction over the life course. Elder's (1984) model of the dual dynamic of family development suggests that family relationships change in response to the individual developmental paths of family members. At the same time, changing patterns of family interaction shape individual life paths. Research in this tradition has demonstrated the potential for continuity over time and over generations in family process and the ability of the life course transitions of individual family members to change patterns of family relationships (Caspi & Elder, 1988; Elder, Caspi, & Burton, 1988; Elder, Caspi, & Downey, 1986). Continuity in Family Patterns: The Past as Prologue How much continuity in parent-child relations should we expect to observe when children move from adolescence to young adulthood? …

Filial Role Enactment by Adult Children

Data from a random sample of 144 elderly parent-adult child pairs are used to examine what adult children do for their parents and factors related to level of parental assistance. The final multiple regression model accounts for 63.2% of the variability in filial role enactment. One main effect, parental marital status, and two interaction effects, child's gender with parental health and adult child's affection toward parent with geographical distance from parent, are statistically significant.

Filial Responsibility Expectations Among Adult Child-Older Parent Pairs

We investigated filial responsibility consensus in a random sample of 144 elderly parent-adult child pairs. Most respondents interpreted the filial role as including a great deal of emotional support and discussion of important matters and available resources. Both generations perceived living close by and writing letters to parents on a weekly basis as less important. Parents, compared to their offspring, were more likely to disapprove of receiving financial assistance from children, living with children, and having children adjust their work schedules to help them. Robinson's A revealed that there was a moderate level of intergenerational agreement on filial responsibility expectations.

Getting Mad at Mom and Dad: Children's Changing Views of Family Conflict

Family conflict is an inevitable outgrowth of the social and psychological differences intrinsic to lineage relationships. The present work demonstrates that a blending of family sociology and social cognitive perspectives leads to a fuller understanding of developmental changes in children's reports of intergenerational conflict. Statements from stories on family conflict told by 192 children from grades 2, 5, 8, 10, and freshman college were coded using six conflict categories derived from Bengtson's model of intergenerational solidarity and Selman and Youniss' work on the development of interpersonal understanding. In general, family conflict themes of childhood were concerned with failure of children to fulfil social obligations, the inadequacy of parental helping behaviours and, to a lesser degree, children's disappointment in the frequency of parent-child association. In adolescence, family conflict themes emerged that reflected concern with failure of parents to provide affectional support, the inadequate fulfilment of both filial and parental role expectations, and lack of consensus on familial and societal values.

HUMAN RIGHTS AND HOME‐SCHOOL COMMUNICATIONS: A CRITICAL REVIEW

Abstract Recent British literature on home‐school communication is discussed in relation to the rights of parents, teachers and pupils. It is argued that in order to perform the parental, teaching, filial or pupillary role, an individual needs to give and receive relevant information at appropriate times and in comprehensible form. His freedom to perform the named role and his other roles in life must, however, be safeguarded from inappropriate demands for communication facilities by members of the other two groups.

A Comparative Study of Parental and Filial Role Definitions

A Comparative Study of Parental and Filial Role Definitions

The Seneca Perspective and the Shakespearean Poetic

The Seneca Perspective and The Shakespearean Poetic R. J. Kaufmann Look upon my steadiness and scorn not the sickness of my fortune. John Ford Marx observed, “ Me, I’m not a Marxist.” Similarly, the Roman stoic sage, politician and dramatist, Seneca could say, “ Me, I’m not a Senecan,” for the critical tradition has reduced him to quirks of style and critical truisms, lost him behind a blood-thirsty progeny of imitators. Little read, he is caught in a web of conditioned responses, as the sponsor of unactable dramas of fateful blood vengeance and florid mythic refurbishment. Posterity has had vengeance upon him. Hence it is now difficult to see him as he appeared to 16th and 17th century minds of the first-quality, when men like Montaigne, Shake­ speare and Webster took him seriously. In this essay I will be specu­ lating on “ their” Seneca. His inner thought patterns are fascinating in themselves, but I am equally interested in his possible formative influence on the thematic preoccupations, the imaginative strategies and the particular tone of the Shakespearean drama. We can take for granted that the influence of Roman thought, Roman codifications and Roman literary devices on the literature of the English Renaissance was immense, and that beyond these bor­ rowed appurtenances of form and fossils of thought, the monographic value of Roman lives was pervasive. But in this pattern we can find instructive points of sympathy and, equally instructive, instances of a cultural incapacity to assimilate the work of Roman figures now sympathetic to us. For example, in the mid-twentieth century, Tacitus speaks direct to our condition as Ovid and Livy do not. We find a disciplined modernity in Tacitus, whose sternly attenuated romanticism is an uneasy counterweight to Tacitus’s knowledge of what is required of men if the hard, compromised business of government is to continue. Reading him we find it enviable to be so wise and yet to carry illusions and nostalgia with sculpted dignity. In his Annals we find a way of accepting indignity with dignity— the lesson long subjection to power teaches the historically confined, good man. We respond to Tacitus, because, profoundly immersed in political fife, writing with matchless directness of political scenes, he is precisely non-political. He is a 182 R. J. Kaufmann 183 moralist, a social psychologist, with style. These same things, with some downward scaling, and with allowance for a more oblique nature can be said of Seneca. Seneca and Tacitus have much in common. It required a substantial communal effort in the English Renaissance before Seneca’s cues to art and experience could be effectively utilized. The assimilation of a mature but alien culture proceeds in a fairly predictable pattern. The more the recipient culture needs the knowl­ edge and sophistication of the richer culture the less likely it is to absorb them promptly. The debtor culture may suppose it is imi­ tating accurately but the sense of tone will be wrong, the ethical apprehension imperfect, the handling awkward, until by a gradually strengthened taste this filial role can be changed for something nearer objective acquisition and imitation. As Whitehead remarks, “ The philosopher cannot seriously put to himself questions that his civiliza­ tion has not lived.” The available facts suggest that the richer part of Seneca was not accessible to the English mind until the early years of the 17th century. The advance into a mature Elizabethan drama as we move from, say 1585 to 1615 is marked by the development of psychological and poetic idioms that qualify each other. The dramatists had to build a verse able to track and annotate powerful emotion in the making. A gradual comprehension of Seneca evidently helped to supply this psychological syntax. Titus Andronicus (c. 1590) is a Senecan play in about the same sense that Pinero’s The Second Mrs. Tanquery is a hona fide replication of Ibsen’s intentions. The appeal to specific modes of sensationalism are similar, but all the rest, and it the most important, differs. Titus Andronicus is perhaps best understood as an attempt at Seneca by a man whose sympathies still were with Ovid and the play’s tone is correspondingly determined. Shakespeare, I...