Old Age Support to Parents and Parents-in-Law in China

Background: Many studies indicate that in contemporary Chinese families, siblings act collaboratively to meet the multiple needs of their parents. Yet, little is known about the support to parents and parents-in-law from married children and their spouses. We addressed two research questions: 1) are married adult children able to meet the financial and instrumental needs of their parents and parents-in-law?; and 2) what factors influence the type of support provided to parents and parents-in-law? Methods: This study utilized data collected in 2005 China General Social Survey (CGSS). There were 356 men and 418 women in the sample. Separate logistic regressions were run to reveal the likelihood of men and women providing financial support and instrumental support to parents and parents-in-law and to identify factors that influence the likelihood of support provision. Results: The majority of men and women reported that they provided financial and instrumental support to their own parents and their parents-in-law in the last 12 months. The results indicated, across gender groups, adult children were only able to be responsible for either financial support or instrumental support for one set of parents, indicating that couples agreed that they were unlikely to meet the financial and instrumental needs of two sets of parents simultaneously. Analyses from both adult children's and children-in-law's perspectives suggested a gender pattern of financial and instrumental support provision. Older, financially and educationally better-off sons were more likely to provide financial support to parents, while their wives' longer working hours and fewer siblings decreased the likelihood of providing financial support to parents. Daughters'-in-law's characteristics did not affect their financial support provision to husbands' parents. Sons who were older and married to women with higher education were more likely to provide instrumental support to parents. One explanation is that sons had to provide instrumental help to their parents because their well-educated wives were less likely to be available to husbands' parents. Longer working hours of daughters decreased the likelihood of providing financial support to their parents but increased the likelihood of sons-in-law's providing financial support to their wives' parents. In addition, financially and educationally better-off sons-in-law were more likely to provide financially support to wives' parents. With regard to instrumental support to daughters' parents, daughters' and their spouses' incomes were negatively associated with the likelihood of a daughter to provide instrumental support, but the sons-in-law's likelihood of providing instrumental support to their wives' parents was negatively affected by their wives' working hours and their own number of siblings. Implications: Overall, our findings suggest that couples act collaboratively to meets the financial and instrumental needs of two sets of parents. Men are more likely to provide financial support and instrumental support to their wives' parents if necessary. In contrast, women are less accountable for support provision to their husbands' parents. This finding challenges the traditional roles and power of men and women in Chinese family and marriage, and calls for more research into the older age support in the context of marriage, especially for the only-child generation.