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Our fall Distinguished Lecture Series season continues with "Intergenerational Exchanges in Rural China: Aging Families in Transition," courtesy of Dr. Merril Silverstein, USC Professor of Gerontology and Sociology, Andrus Gerontology Center.
To commemorate USC’s 125th anniversary, the USC School of Social Work kicked off its Distinguished Lecture Series on Chinese Social and Economic Development in March to showcase USC’s leadership in redefining the research university of the 21st century.
The resilience of rural families in developing nations is often attributed to the dynamic transfer of resources across generational lines. In the absence of public services and programs, families are compelled to rely on each other within a web of mutual exchanges and supports. A prime example is in rural China, where labor force migration of young adults has split families, leaving older parents in rural areas with responsibilities to care for their grandchildren, and migrant children in urban areas, sending remittances back to their rural parents.
This investigation studied whether childcare provided by older grandparents was reciprocated by their adult children in the form of financial, instrumental/personal, and farm labor support, as well as the consequences of such exchanges for the emotional and cognitive health of older parents. Survey data came from 2001 and 2003 surveys of adults aged 60 years and older living in five rural counties of Anhui Province, China. The random sample consisted of 1,421 parents who reported about relationships with 4,289 adult children. Results support a corporatist, mutual aid model of the rural Chinese family in which intergenerational exchanges tend toward equilibrium and multiple family needs are met. There is also evidence that family support and cohesion are protective of cognitive health of the elderly over time.
Please join us at 11 a.m. in the Hamovitch Center for Science in the Human Services, located on the first floor of the Montgomery Ross Fisher building on the USC University Park campus.
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