The Elderly and Old Age Support in Rural China (Directions in Development)

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This study also investigated to what extent parental status interacts with confounding factors such as education, income, living arrangement, contact with children, and family support in affecting psychological wellbeing. Culturally and symbolically, it represents a normative life experience and social role that are closely linked to core psychological needs for connectedness, belonging, meaning and immortality Connidis, Despite this widespread belief, empirical findings in the West fail to show any consistent emotional advantages of having children.

Studies in the U. The findings applied to even the most vulnerable older populations such as those with physical disabilities and the oldest-old Chang et al. In a national study of mid- and late-life adults in U. Several reasons may explain these seemingly surprising findings.

It is likely that childless elders adapt at finding other sources of meaning and fulfillment Hansen et al. They may investe more heavily on relationships with other kin, friends, and neighbors, obtaining needed support from them Dykstra, Childlessness tends to have a positive impact on economic status in later life, particularly among women, which appears to be a major correlates of subjective well-being Plotnick, Childlessness, however, appears to be a stronger and more consistent risk factor for Chinese older adults.

Introduction

A study of older adults in Hong Kong found a higher level of loneliness and depression in childless elders than their peers with children, even when factors such as age, gender, marital status, education, self-rated health and financial strain were controlled K. Another study of elders in mainland China similarly reported lower life satisfaction, greater anxiety and loneliness among the childless than parents W. Such relationships disappeared when factors of demographic attributes, rural vs.

Unfortunately, no additional analysis was carried out to examine in what way these confounding variables worked. The overall empirical evidence seems to suggest that childlessness is more consequential in Chinese elders than in their Western counterparts. But the reason why it is so is not clear. Nauck and Klaus pointed out that the value of having children is conditioned upon socioeconomic and institutional structures within which the family is embedded.

More research that is sensitive to the local contexts is needed. Studies are also needed to carefully tease out the effect of potential confounding factors at individual and family levels in studying the consequences of childlessness among older populations. Compared to their urban counterparts, Chinese rural elderly have a larger average household size 3.

In China, there are strong social expectations towards parenthood, which perhaps is the most important responsibility inherent to the marriage. According to Chinese traditional values, childlessness was perceived as a shame or a curse on the family, particularly for women K. Couples would be embarrassed if they were infertile, for not being able to continue the family line. Childless women are especially stigmatized, often experiencing disapproval and discord relationships with husband and in-laws, and even marriage breakdown W.

From the functional perspective, children are of particular significance as old age security in China, especially in rural areas Jiang, In China, filial responsibility of adult children to their parents entails a complex series of duties including coresidence, food provision, and physical and emotional care of parents Zhan, The Chinese Constitution of and the Marriage Law of both clearly mandate supporting aging parents as a legal obligation of adult children R. Support from adult children is especially crucial for Chinese rural elders who often have very limited personal resources and formal services.

The average per capita annual income for rural residents was less than one third of that of urban residents National Statistics Bureaus of China, The lack of protection of formal services makes adult children the most available and reliable source of old-age support for Chinese rural elders. While the previous work on Chinese older adults have either focused on economically developed regions K.

The questions addressed in the study include:. Given that a major negative consequence of childlessness among Chinese rural elders is lack of monetary support from children in later life, the third question asked:. The sample of this study was derived from Anhui province, which is an underdeveloped province, with GDP per capita ranked 26th among the 31 provinces in China National Statistics Bureaus of China, The baseline survey was conducted in A multistage cluster sampling method was used to recruit 1, respondents aged 60 and older from the administrative records of 72 randomly selected villages in 6 rural townships in Chaohu region.

Respondents discussed each child at length in terms of living arrangement, frequency of contact, and support exchanges. Follow-up surveys were administered to the original respondents in , , and , with attritions of The survey also used systematic sampling method to select elders aged between 60 and 67 7 elders in each 72 village to replenish the sample. Among them, older adults completed the survey. The data used in the current study was derived from the most recent survey — the survey — which consisted of a total of 1, older adults who provided information on 4, children.

Psychological well-being was operationalized as life satisfaction and depression to index both positive and negative well-being. The life satisf action scale assessed cognitive judgments regarding the current quality of life. The sum score of life satisfaction ranged from 0 to seven, with higher scores reflecting higher levels of life satisfaction. The depression scale had nine items, among which three indicated feelings of positive affect happiness, enjoyment, pleasantness , two indicated feelings of negative affect lonely, upset , two indicated feelings of marginalization useless, nothing to do , and two indicated somatic symptoms poor appetite, has trouble sleeping.

After reversely coding positive affect items i. Family relations were assessed by fiver indicators that captured the living arrangement, intergenerational contact, and family support received by the older adults. Living arrangement included two dichotomous variables: Intergenerational contact was assessed by the variable: Family support included monetary and instrumental support. Monetary support was assessed by the total amount of money received from all children during the past year.

Natural log of the RMB value was used because of the skewed distribution of this variable.

Instrumental support was assessed by a dichotomous variable assessing whether the respondent had received hands-on help from any family members e. The variables living with children , having monthly contact with at least one child , and monetary support from children were coded 0 for childless elders due to the absence of such family relations. Income was indicated by the total income that the respondent and spouse, if married had received from work or pension in the past year. The natural log of the RMB value was used to represent this variable given its skewed distribution.

Descriptive data were presented to provide a profile of the older adults in the study. A series of T-tests, ANOVA tests, and Chi-square tests were carried out to compare the three groups of older adults in their individual attributes and family relations. To answer the first research question, ANOVA tests were carried out to compare the three groups in their level of depression and life satisfaction, respectively.

To answer the second and the third research questions, multiple regression analyses were carried out to predict the depression and life satisfaction respectively, with four sets of variables entered sequentially in each regression: The last step of the regressions tested whether childlessness is more consequential in certain groups of older adults. Table 1 presents the sample characteristics. About half of them were females and the majority were married The mean annual income of the respondents was 2, RMB USD and the average functional health difficulty score was 3. The average respondent had about four children.

Among them, 50 4. More than two thirds of the parents had monthly contact with at least one child. ANOVA tests were conducted to compare group differences in age, income, and functional health difficulties. T-tests were conducted to compare elder with one child and elders with multiple children in the amount of monetary support from children.

Chi-square tests were conducted to compare group differences in the rest of the variables. The sample is comparable to Chinese rural elderly in general in gender composition women: The share of the childless in the sample is also comparable to the national figure 4. However, the respondents in the sample had much lower education illiterate: Overall, the sample represents a group of economically deprived older adults, even compared to Chinese rural elderly in general who have relatively low economic status.

Table 1 also compares the three groups in their individual and family attributes. The three groups differed significantly in all domains except for education, functional health difficulties, and the likelihood of receiving instrumental support. An examination of the raw data showed that the nature of being unmarried was quite different between the childless and the older parents. In other words, childless elders in this study were mainly males who had never married. It is likely that these men in rural China were too poor to get married in early years and thus remain single and childless in later life.

Childless elders also had lower income and higher likelihood to living alone. Among older parents, having more than one child was associated with greater likelihood of having monthly contact with children and significantly more monetary support from children. To address the first research question, two ANOVA tests were carried out to compare the three groups in levels of depression and life satisfaction. Figure 1 illustrates the results, showing that childless elders had the highest level of depression and the lowest level of life satisfaction, followed by elders with one child and elders with multiple children.

Post-hoc analyses revealed that the significant differences in depression were between older adults with multiple children and the two other groups. The differences in life satisfaction were significant across all the three groups. To understand what factors account for such group differences and to answer the second and the third research questions, multiple regressions were carried out to predict depression and life satisfaction by sequentially entering parental status, personal attributes, family relation variables, and the interaction terms.

Table 2 presents the results of regressions predicting depression. Consistent with the results of ANOVA tests, the Model 1 showed that only having more than one child was associated with lower level of depression. When controlling for personal attributes in the Model 2, the difference between the childless and elders with multiple children remained, suggesting that individual attributes such as higher income of elders with multiple children did not fully account for their lower level of depression than the childless.

Having one child became a significant predictor in the Model 2, showing that, given similar individual attributes, older adults with one child would also be less depressed than the childless.

Model 2 revealed that older adults who were illiterate, who had lower income, and who had more functional health difficulties had higher level of depression. Specifically, living alone and lack of monetary support from children were associated with higher level of depression. In the Model 4, interactions between monetary support and other significant predictors were added to further understand whether the negative influence of lack of monetary support from children was particularly detrimental to certain groups of rural elders.

The results of Model 4 revealed a significant interaction between income of older adults and monetary support form children. The benefit of monetary support from children was minimal among elders with 90 th percentile income, evidenced by the relatively flat line.

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In other words, with high level of income, lack of monetary support from children was not very detrimental for older adults. I repeated the same regression analyses on life satisfaction Table 3. Several notable differences in the life satisfaction regressions emerged. First, parents with one child also had a higher level of life satisfaction than childless elders.

Such a difference was not associated with individual attributes Model 2 , and seemed to be resulted from the differences between the two groups in whether the participants lived with and received monetary support from children Model 3. Second, even after controlling for all the individual and family relation variables, parents with multiple children still enjoyed higher level of life satisfaction compared to the childless Model 3. This suggests that the mere fact of having multiple children may yield a greater sense of satisfaction among Chinese rural elders.

Overall, older adults who were married, educated, who had higher income, less functional difficulties, who lived with children, and who received greater monetary support from children had greater life satisfaction. As for depression, the interaction between income and monetary support from children was statistically significant predictor Model 4. Figure 3 shows that elders who had no income benefited most from monetary support from children, followed by those with average income, and then those with 90 th percentile income.

To revolve the puzzling findings in the previous studies that Chinese elders tend to be more negatively affected by childlessness than their Western counterparts, this study used a sample of Chinese rural elders to examine potential differences among childless elders, elders with one child, and elders with multiple children in their levels of depression and life satisfaction, and the mechanism behind the potential differences.

The empirical analysis suggests several important conclusions. As a matter of fact, childless elders in the sample did have poorer psychological well-being than older parents.

They also demonstrated vulnerabilities in other domains of personal and social lives such as lower income and a greater tendency to live alone. These findings contrast those in the U. Childlessness in rural China is a risk factor and is likely to leave those with no child in destitute and poor psychological status in later life. The reasons for such a risk go beyond the mere fact that one has no child.

Instead, the risk is likely to be attributable to low income, living alone, and not receiving monetary support from children in this population. As discussed below, having higher income can buffer against this risk.

Parental status and late-life well-being in rural China: The benefits of having multiple children

It is worth noting that the adverse conditions of the childless in the sample may be the very reason explaining their childlessness in the first place. The childless in the study were older men who had never married. This is an interesting finding that reflects poor marital prospects for Chinese men living in poor rural regions. The findings reveal that the primary mechanism underpinning the unfavorable psychological outcomes of childlessness in rural China was lack of monetary support from children in later life.

Children is an important source of comfort to Chinese rural elders for a very practical reason: While Western elders often have savings, pensions, retirement benefits, and health care, children might be the only source of income for older adults in rural China. The availability of social services in rural China is also minimum. The joint effect of low income and lack of monetary support from children is particularly detrimental, demonstrated by the significant interactions between the two variables in predicting both depression and life satisfaction.

As observed in Figure 2 and Figure 3 , among those who had a high level of income, the benefit of monetary support from children was negligible, with older adults receiving different levels of monetary support having comparable levels of depression and life satisfaction. I argue that this pattern resembles the findings in most Western studies, that is, given sufficient financial protections, whether having children or receiving momentary support from them would have a very limited impact on individual well-being. The significant results of income and monetary support from children by no means indicate that other factors such as health, in-person contact, and instrumental support from children are not important for Chinese rural elderly.

Second, the measures of contact and instrumental support were aggregated values at the family level. Finally, it is possible that greater monetary support from children reflects closer parent-child relationships which benefit late-life wellbeing but is not captured in this study. Other things being equal, older parents with multiple children still enjoyed a higher level of life satisfaction than childless elders.

Depression in Older People in Rural China

In other words, the mere presence of multiple children boosted the sense of life satisfaction among Chinese rural elders. Such a relationship was not found in depression. This is an important finding because it demonstrates that depression and life satisfaction may represent conceptually distinctive domains of subjective well-being that are affected by the childless status differently Umberson et al. Unlike many Western societies, childlessness still represents a disruption of the expected life course for most Chinese.

In contrast, only about 4. Being a childless in China, thus may lead to a sense of failure to meet normative expectations, which in turn, would depress positive self-evaluations and create lower life satisfaction Hansen et al. It is reasonable to assume that parents with multiple children in rural China may view their fortunes and achievements in life more favorably than the childless and parents with only one child, and consequently enjoying greater sense of life satisfaction.

This study is limited in its generalizability. The very low socioeconomic status of the respondents needs to be borne in mind when interpreting the findings related to income and monetary support from children.

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These findings may not be applicable to Chinese elders in urban areas or more affluent rural areas. Although the proportion of the childless in the sample is comparable to the national figure, the predominantly high percentage of unmarried males in the group is unusual and may reflect the characteristics of the childless in economically deprived areas only.

More studies using national samples are needed. The relationships found in this study need to be validated using larger representative samples of elders who fall into these less common but more vulnerable status groups. The small sample size of subgroups also prevented additional analysis testing interactions with gender and marital status.

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