Parents In Old Age Research Articles

Bevaikystė ir požiūris į rūpinimąsi vyresnio amžiaus tėvais Lietuvoje

In rapidly ageing societies, caring and responsibilities for parents in old age is a widely discussed topic. This is particularly relevant in societies with low fertility and high rates of childlessness. Lithuania is one of the countries where demographic ageing rates have risen sharply in a short period of time. This process has been driven not only by low fertility but also by emigration of middle-aged and young people and increasing life expectancy. There is no lack of research on demographic changes in ageing societies in the country, but very little is known about the attitudes of childless men and women towards caring for their parents in old age. The aim of the study is to determine the attitudes of childless and child-bearing individuals towards parental responsibilities in Lithuania. Our analysis is based on the 2018-2019 ‘Families and Inequality Survey’ dataset collected in Lithuania. The data covers 3,005 individuals aged 34-48 at the time of the survey. The representative sample was obtained by using a stratified sampling method. Face-to-face interviews were carried out with respondents in their homes by using a standardized questionnaire. The data were analysed using descriptive statistics and chi-square methods. We found that the proportion of men (12.0%) who do not want to have children is statistically significantly higher (p=0.003) than the proportion of women (7.6%). We found that childless people were less likely than those with children to agree with the statement that children should look after their parents. In addition, women were more likely than men to agree with these statements. Our findings are important from a practical point of view – when considering social care and pronatalist policy measures. Research project is financially supported by the Research Council of Lithuania (LMTLT), agreement No. P-MIP-22-24.

Abuse of Women at Work Place –Psyche Behind Abuse

Since ancient time India is a multi cultural patriarchal society where decision making power is given to men in the family. Father is considered as the head of the family, the sole bread earner and entire family depends on him. The power of control, authority, financial decision making, and related to entire family is made by the head of the family. Family brought up of boys and girls entirely differs in patriarchal setup. Boys are considered as assets to the family and girls are considered as the burden in the family. Hence number of restrictions are made for the girls like nutritive food deprivation, health deprivation, educational deprivation, control of movements of girls, lack of freedom, must for girls to learn and do house hold chores. . But boys in the family are pampered, given lot of freedom and economic in dependency. They were provided with nutritive food, each and every demand Of the boys in the family was will be fulfilled in the family as parents think that they take of their parents in old age. Such pampered boys when they get educated and employed, in work set up their psyche will be different and they do not give respect to gender equality. Present paper entitled “Abuse of women at work place –psyche behind abuse “ through light on the types of abuse women under go in work place with special reference to educational institutions and the causes of abuse and strategies to change the scenario.

Khmer Nuns and Filial Debts: Buddhist Intersections in Contemporary Cambodia

Cambodian Buddhist nuns, including the white-robed ṭūn jī, occupy a fraught confluence of competing cultural and religious narratives. Chief among these narratives is gratitude to mothers, among the most powerful structuring forces in Khmer Buddhist culture. By ordaining as nuns, Khmer women break no explicit moral rules, but violate implicit conventions to bear children for their husbands and care for their parents in old age. To explore how this tension plays out in the lives of individual nuns, I draw on public statements and social media posts of two of the most prominent nuns in Cambodia today, Chea Silieng and Heng Kosorl. The two nuns have taken a divergent approach to filial debts, with Silieng emphasizing freedom from her birth family, husband, and children and Kosorl frequently posting about acts of devotion to her parents and grandparents. Both approaches reveal the profoundly gendered dimensions of filial piety and the complex intersection of such narratives with the growing stature of nuns as Buddhist leaders and teachers in Cambodia.

Today’s condition of old age people in Indian setup

Rohinton Mistry’s Family Matters is a novel which centers the family and the emotions of everyone in the family in a good and bad way. This novel shows well the bondage between father and a daughter, step father and a step daughter, grand - father and grand - sons and husband and wife. It is moving account of every middle class family in an Indian set-up. The readers could experience the real feel of incidents happening at their own familes. Family Matters is an exposure of defenselessness, sadness, pain, and travails of parents in old age and cold-bloodedness and heartlessness of children. The problems of old parents are elaborated through the protagonist Professor Nariman Vakeel. Through one family, the novel reveals not only predicament among India's Parsis, Persian-descended Zoroastrians, but wider corruption and communalism. It hints at the ripple effects of public policies on private lives. This paper exhibits the real life style and the status of old people in Indian middle class families.

Islamic law and investments in children: Evidence from the Sharia introduction in Nigeria

Islamic law lays down detailed rules regulating children’s upbringing. This study examines the effect of such rules on investments in children by analysing the introduction of Sharia law in northern Nigeria. Triple-differences estimates using temporal, geographical and religious variation together with large, representative survey data show decreases in infant mortality. Official government statistics further confirm improvements in survival. Findings also show that Sharia increased vaccination rates, duration of breastfeeding and prenatal health care. Evidence suggests that Sharia improved survival by specifying strict child protection laws and by formalising children’s duty to maintain their parents in old age or in sickness.

Epidemiological factors influencing gender preference among mothers attending under-five immunization clinic: A cross-sectional comparative study.

BACKGROUND:Sex ratio is an important social indicator measuring the status and equality of female in society. The falling sex ratio of our country is a demographic disaster that is waiting to happen and is a matter of grave concern. Perception of gender by mothers or families has long-term implications on how children are nurtured during their lives. This study was done to understand mother's preference for the gender of the child and their concerns about the same.MATERIALS AND METHODS:An observational cross-sectional study was carried out using a semi-structured questionnaire. Two hundred and thirty-four mothers were interviewed. Frequencies and percentages were calculated. Pearson's Chi-square test was used to check the significance of the association.RESULTS:Study results depict that 26.47% of the mothers who were already having a male child still preferred son. Preference for son was 24.52% and 48.61% among earning mothers and nonearning mothers, respectively. Out of 206 mothers said that they would prefer male child. Reasons cited were as follows: sons carry family name forward (30.6%), having daughters leads to increased expenditure (20.9%), daughters are subjected to different problem in their lifetime mainly violence (11.7%), and sons supported their parents in old age (10.7%).CONCLUSION:Preference for male child was found to be equally prevalent in both urban and rural areas. Mothers should be educated about the effect of declining sex ratio along with financial capacity building of women and providing social security to senior citizens which was the main reason for son preference. The impact of gender imbalance on individuals, families, and on society has to be emphasized at every possible point of contact with health-care delivery system.

Awareness and perceptions of anganwadi workers about female feticide and girl child discrimination in district Ludhiana, Punjab

Background:It is a matter of grave concern that a girl child continues to be insecure and vulnerable in the state of Punjab. To ingrain gender equality in social system, it is very important to make community an important stakeholder to deal with the situation. This study focuses on the awareness and perceptions of anganwadi workers regarding girl child discrimination and female feticide.Materials and Methods:A total of 2206 anganwadi workers between the age group of 20–70 years of different blocks of Ludhiana district, Punjab, were enrolled. They had come for Anganwadi Worker (AWW) Training Workshop, organized at Urban Health Centre, Ludhiana, Punjab. Data were analyzed in terms of proportions.Results:Study subjects showed high level of awareness about female feticide (98.8%). A majority of the subjects (93.3%) agreed to the fact that practice of discrimination is being followed between boys and girls. They were also of the opinion that this practice is harmful and it should be stopped (98.9%). Various contributing factors enumerated by them included sons are intelligent, carry on family lineage, and they take care of their parents in old age. Regarding perception of anganwadi workers for curbing this social evil, 70.7% of subjects were of the view that by giving equal opportunities, equal status to girls, and empowering girls, this practice can be stopped, while 42.4% of the subjects were of the view that increasing awareness among the rural women, parents, and family is the solution to stop this practice.Conclusion:The anganwadi workers had optimum level of awareness about female feticide and almost all of them strongly felt that this harmful practice should be stopped altogether.

Fertility and old-age labor supply in aging China

This paper studies the fertility and old-age labor supply decisions of Chinese households along with the relaxation of fertility control and a rise in life expectancy. We first build an overlapping-generations model, where agents make endogenous fertility and old-age labor supply decisions in the presence of fertility constraint. In our model, children serve as an alternative saving technology since they provide intra-family transfer for their old-age parents. Our analytical results suggest that the impact of rising life expectancy on fertility depends on whether children are more like consumption goods or saving vehicles. Relaxing fertility control would induce more leisure in the old age, while a rise in life expectancy would lead to more old-age labor supply. We then calibrate the model to Chinese economy and find that a rise in life expectancy would discourage fertility as intra-family transfer becomes less important. In addition, the implementation of two-children policy rather than full relaxation of fertility control, a rise in child-rearing cost, and an expansion of social security would also reduce fertility, partly offsetting the effects of relaxing one-child policy.

Mobility as a support strategy: Linked lives through the life course among Eastern Europeans in Spain

This article examines the role of mobility in the creation of support strategies of Eastern Europeans (EEs) in Spain. It emphasizes the relational linkages of mobility and shows how strategies of linked-lives are constructed and maintained over the life-course. Drawing on 52 in-depth interviews with EEs (Romanians and Bulgarians) who practice mobility to and from Spain, this article makes two contributions. First, it expands the concept of linked-lives across the life-course in mobility. Second, it highlights mobility as a support strategy to show how EE mobile children, through their movement, assist their parents both in their origin countries and in Spain. I argue that mobility articulates and harmonizes multiple practices of support strategies that link people’s lives in different ways: (a) mobility as a strategy to support parents in old age; (b) mobility as a family livelihood strategy; and (c) mobility as a strategy of gratitude and family reunification. The conclusions highlight the need to integrate mobility as a support strategy into the study of global mobility.

Social Norms and Household Savings Rates in China

AbstractWe study the effects of Confucian social norms on savings rates in China. In our simple two-period model, parents have the option to invest in either a risk-free asset or their children’s human capital. We assume that the filial piety norms and thus the enforcement mechanisms for supporting old-age parents differ across regions. Consequently, the probability of children’s non-performance of their repayment obligations to parents and the returns parents can expect from investing in their children vary. We test the model predictions using data from the China Household Finance Survey. We find that stronger Confucian social norms reduce the gap in the savings rate between families with sons and with daughters. Modeling default by children as a function of the prevailing social norms gives us the flexibility to study the impacts of declining Confucian influence on consumption–savings trends in China.

Human Papillomavirus Vaccine Acceptability among Parents of Adolescent Girls in a Rural Area, Mysore, India.

The purpose of this study was to examine factors predicting human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine acceptability among parents of adolescent girls in a rural area in Mysore district, India. Cross-sectional. Mysore, India. Parents of school-going adolescent girls. Parents completed a validated self-administered questionnaire. Parental willingness to vaccinate their daughters with HPV vaccine. Of the 831 parents who participated in this study, 664 (79.9%) were willing to vaccinate their daughter with HPV vaccine sometime soon if they were invited to receive it. Higher odds of parental willingness to vaccinate their daughters with HPV vaccine was observed among those who believed that HPV vaccine is safe (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 2.11; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.01-4.45); their daughter might become sexually active (aOR, 1.84; 95% CI, 1.08-3.13); they have support of other family members to vaccinate their daughter (aOR, 2.86; 95% CI, 1.47-5.57); and that HPV infection causes severe health problems (aOR, 1.64; 95% CI, 1.04-2.57). In contrast, parents who believed that there is low risk that their daughter will get cervical cancer (aOR, 0.52; 95% CI, 0.29-0.95); that the family will disapprove of getting their daughter vaccinated (aOR, 0.45; 95% CI, 0.22-0.76); that the injection might cause pain (aOR, 0.53; 95% CI, 0.31-0.89), and were older-age parents (aOR, 0.96; 95% CI, 0.93-0.99) had lower odds of willingness to vaccinate daughters with HPV vaccine. Acceptance of HPV vaccination for daughters was high among rural parents in Mysore, India. However, health education to reduce the belief that injection is painful and that daughters are at low risk to get cervical cancer is important to further improve parental HPV vaccine acceptability in Mysore. Public health education should target older-aged parents and extended family members.

Awareness and perception regarding female foeticide among adolescents in rural community of Nalgonda district, Telangana

Background: Female foeticide is perhaps one of the worst forms of violence against women where a woman is denied her most basic and fundamental right i.e. “the right to life”. Exorbitant dowry demand is one of the main reasons for female infanticide and other reasons include belief that it is only the son who can perform the last rites, that lineage and inheritance runs through the male line, sons will look after parents in old age, men are bread winners etc. The present study was aimed to assess the awareness & perception regarding female foeticide among adolescents in rural community.Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 200 school students with a pre-tested, semi structured questionnaire in order to assess the awareness & perception regarding female foeticide among adolescents. Data collected was analysed using SPSS software.Results: Majority (52.5%) of the study subjects were males. Majority (70%) of the subjects could define foeticide. Boys have better knowledge than girls regarding current sex ratio (21%), state position(20%) and district position(33.3%).The most common reasons for not preferring girl child were not carrying family name and burden to the family. Major source of information was social media.Conclusions: This study reveals that there is considerable scope for spreading awareness to youth about this social malady with medical implications. This will not only change the perception and behaviour of future generation, but motivated adolescents can also influence the families and communityation.

Gender preference and awareness regarding sex determination among married women in urban slums

Background: People in India exhibit a strong gender preference for male child and this discrimination or prejudice continues in spite of socio- economic development and higher growth rates. The preference for sons has been associated with preferential abortion of female fetuses and even to female infanticide. Objective of the study was to assess gender preferences among married women in urban slums. Methods: It was a community based cross sectional done at Urban Health Training Centre, Shahpur Nagar which is field practice area of Department of Community Medicine of Malla Reddy Institute of Medical Sciences, Hyderabad. The study participants were all women who were above 18 years of age. During the study period we enrolled a total of 157 women. Results: The maximum subjects were in the age group of 18-30 (54.1%). 82.2% of the study participants knew that sex determination is a crime. The majority of study participants stated dowry problems as the reason for their non preference of female children (77.3%) while 4.5% did not prefer female children due to the fact that they do not stay with their parents after marriage, 9.1% said rearing problem. Conclusions: So intense health education should be given to the community telling them that it’s not only sons who take care of parents in old age but daughters can also play the same role. We need to educate them sons’ and daughters should be equally treated in the family.

Later Life Impacts of Social Participation on Parents of Adult Offspring With and Without Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities.

Social participation is an important resource for parents in old age, and may be particularly important for parents living with adult offspring with intellectual and developmental disabilities. To evaluate whether socializing with friends and family and participating in social organizations protects against depression in old age, this study examined parents of adult offspring with disabilities ( n = 164) and without disabilities ( n = 820). As expected, more socializing with friends and more participating in organizations were associated with fewer depressive symptoms for all parents. However, socializing with family members predicted fewer depressive symptoms only for parents co-residing with their adult offspring with disabilities, suggesting that socializing with family is particularly important for parents providing direct care to adults with disabilities.

Changes in patterns of land succession and their implications for the destination of properties among family farmers in the north of Rio Grande do Sul

Traditionally, the social reproduction of family agriculture has a close relationship and dependence on the permanence of at least one of the children in the place of the parents, thus materializing the succession process. One of the main characteristics is that the successor son receives the land, or at least part of it, as aninheritance, to produce in it and to assume the responsibility of supporting parents in old age. This study identifies and analyzes the social, economic and productive "arrangements" and strategies that family farmers elaborate and adopt in the absence ofsuccession contexts, especially in relation to the destination of the properties. The data presented in this study provided the basis of the master's thesis defended in 2017 in the Programa de Pós-Graduação em Desenvolvimento Rural (PGDR) of the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). This is a case study carried out in the municipality of Frederico Westphalen, in the northern region of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, one of the many regions historically characterized by the large presence of family farmers. Twenty-three family farmers without successors were interviewed in the period from January to April 2016. Currently, for various reasons, families are having difficulties to complete the succession of properties. Thus, the standard and uniform succession model, established in family agriculture and widely studied and disseminated in the specialized literature, seems no longer to prevail, signaling a new kind of succession pattern, although with contours which are not yet clear. The absence ofsuccessors makes the destiny of the properties a key social problem among familiar farmers, causing concern among the parents, but little evident among the children. In general, the results show that there are different paths adopted by farmers regarding the absence of successors, which take into account staying on the property or moving to urban areas, being with their children in the urban environment and being cared for by them or accepting the care of others, which confirms the de-structuring of a pattern of succession that prevailed in previous generations. The study also shows the existence, still under construction, of a new succession pattern among family farmers, now supported by the idea that there would be heirs, but not necessarily successors.

Fertility and Life Satisfaction in Rural Ethiopia

Despite recent strong interest in the link between fertility and subjective well-being, the focus has centered on developed countries. For poorer countries, in contrast, the relationship remains rather elusive. Using a well-established panel survey-the Ethiopian Rural Household Survey (ERHS)-we investigate the empirical relationship between fertility and life satisfaction in rural Ethiopia, the largest landlocked country in Africa. Consistent with the fertility theories for developing countries and with the sociodemographic characteristics of rural Ethiopia, we hypothesize that this relationship varies by gender and across life stages, being more positive for men and for parents in old age. Indeed, our results suggest that older men benefit the most in terms of life satisfaction from having a large number of children, while the recent birth of a child is detrimental for the subjective well-being of women at reproductive ages. We address endogeneity issues by using lagged life satisfaction in ordinary least squares regressions, through fixed-effects estimation and the use of instrumental variables.

Confucianism, Social Norms and Household Savings Rates in China

We study the effect of (declining) Confucian social norms on human capital investment and savings rates in China. In our simple two-period model, parents have the option to invest in either a risk-free asset or the human capital of their child. We assume that social norms, and thus enforcement mechanisms, for supporting old-age parents may differ across regions. Consequently, these cultural norms for acceptable filial piety determine the probability of children’s non-performance on their repayment obligations to parents, which in turn affects the variation in returns that parents can expect from investing in their children. Modeling default by children as a function of the prevailing social norms gives us the flexibility to study the impact of the declining Confucian influence on China’s consumption-saving trends. Using data from the China Household Finance Survey, this paper adds to the current literature in several ways. First, we provide evidence to support the key assumption in the life-cycle hypothesis in Modigliani and Cao [2004] that parents view their children, especially sons, as a source of retirement income. Thus, parents’ investment in children’s human capital is not altruistic; nor are intergenerational transfers from adult children to old-age parents. Second, we offer an alternative explanation for high household savings in China. In addition to the One Child Policy and the gender imbalance-induced pressure to save more, the lack of financial development and the declining influence of Confucianism are also significant contributors to China’s rising savings rates.

The Impact of Domestic Remittances on Left-Behind Older People in Vietnam

In the context of an insufficient social protection system the economic lives of older people, especially those living in rural areas, are greatly changed with socio-economic risks that are associated with the strong rural-urban mobility of younger generations. This paper aims to investigate the impacts on the economic well-being of old-age parents of domestic remittances, sent by their children who have migrated from rural to urban areas. Using data from the Vietnam Household Living Standard Survey (VHLSS) in 2004, 2008 and 2012 with logistic regression models, we found that domestic remittances played an essential role in improving income/ expenditure per capita and reducing poverty rates of older people’s households. Domestic remittances also contributed to reduce Gini coefficients, which were calculated using both income and expenditure per capita.

华北乡村有女儿无儿子家庭的财产继承和赡养, 1949–2014

Based on the civil judicial archives of Changli county, Hebei, from 1949 to 1976, the judicial archives of the town of Li (Lizhen), Changli county, from 1992 to 2014, and seven re-investigations of Houjiaying village, which had been surveyed by Japanese Mantetsu researchers in the 1930s and 1940s, this article examines the changing patterns of property inheritance and old-age support of peasant families with only daughters in rural North China from 1949 to 2014, focusing on how the practice of inheritance rights for daughters was gradually formed by the rigid enforcement of the one-child policy and the promulgation of the 1985 Law of Succession. The proportion of peasant families with only daughters has rapidly risen from 15 percent to 20–30 percent due to the enforcement of one-child policy in the 1980s, which led to the abolishing of the old adoption (of a son) system and uxorilocal marriage, both of which had been practiced in the Mao era. Property inheritance in peasant families with only daughters also experienced a huge change from the Mao era to the Reform era. During the Maoist era, parents of peasant families with only daughters always adopted a son or took a son-in-law into their family to inherit their property and support them in their old age. They did so because of the subsistence pressure in families without enough adult male labor to earn sufficient workpoints. During the Reform era, parents of families with only daughters leave their village to live with their daughters in one or another of two patterns. In the first, the parents live with one daughter for the rest of their lives and the daughter who supports them inherits their property. In the second, all the daughters take turns providing support and all eventually inherit equally. This trend shows that because daughters are involved in supporting the parents in old age, the tightly intertwined relationship between property inheritance and old-age support remains unaltered in peasant families with only daughters. 本文使用了河北省昌黎县法院1949–1976年间的民事档案、昌黎县李镇1992年至2014年间的司法所档案，及对李镇侯家营村——满铁重点调查的六个村庄之一——的七次田野调查，探讨了1949年至今华北乡村有女儿无儿子家庭财产继承和赡养的演变。在比例上，因为计划生育政策的严格推行，华北乡村有女儿无儿子家庭从民国时期的15%增加到了当代的20–30%。 从集体化时期到改革开放时期，在财产继承模式上，华北乡村有女儿无儿子家庭的财产继承也经历了巨大的转变，在集体化时期，此类家庭中父母普遍同时采用招赘女婿和过继两种形式，让女婿或继子继承财产。在改革开放时期，在有女儿无儿子家庭中形成了所有女儿均分继承或由一个女儿继承所有财产。在赡养模式上，集体化时期由于以工分为核心的分配体制，使得家庭劳动力特别重要，招赘女婿和过继在社会后果上都增加家庭的男性劳动力，因而可以说是应对生存压力的重要途径，所以集体化时期流行的是赘婿或继子赡养;而改革开放时期华北乡村有女儿无儿子家庭则普遍由所有女儿均承担赡养义务或由一个女儿赡养，父母选择何种方式则和财产继承模式相关。 (This article is in English.)

The Manipulation of Children’s Preferences, Old-Age Support, and Investment in Children’s Human Capital

We consider the link between parents’ influence over the preferences of children, parental investments in children’s human capital, and children’s support of elderly parents. It may pay for parents to spend resources to “manipulate” children’s preferences in order to induce them to support their parents in old age. Since parents invest more in children when they expect greater support, manipulation of child preferences may end up helping children and parents. A new result, which we call the “Rotten Parent Theorem,” demonstrates that if children are altruistic, then even selfish parents will make the optimal investment in their children’s human capital.