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Adaptations to the One-Child Policy: Chinese Young Adults’ Attitudes Toward Elder Care and Living Arrangement After Marriage

After four decades of China’s family planning policy, the shrinking family size and increasing life expectancy pose special challenges for the one-child generation in terms of providing care for aging parents. The current study explored young adults’ responses to such pressure by examining their con...

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Autores principales: Chen, Xiaochen, Zhuoga, Cuo, Deng, Ziqian
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7982951/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33762995
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.608111
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author Chen, Xiaochen
Zhuoga, Cuo
Deng, Ziqian
author_facet Chen, Xiaochen
Zhuoga, Cuo
Deng, Ziqian
author_sort Chen, Xiaochen
collection PubMed
description After four decades of China’s family planning policy, the shrinking family size and increasing life expectancy pose special challenges for the one-child generation in terms of providing care for aging parents. The current study explored young adults’ responses to such pressure by examining their concerns about elder care, attitudes toward nursing homes, and living arrangement after marriage in a sample of 473 Chinese working young adults from six cities in China (46.9% males, M(age) = 25.1 years, 47.8% only children). Results showed that although most of the young adults reported to have thought about the issue of parents’ elder care, the majority did not worry a lot about it. Only children expressed similar levels of worrying as those with siblings did. However, educational level, rather than sibling status, was systematically related to concerns about parents’ elder care and attitudes toward nursing homes. People with higher education tended to worry less about elder care, and were less likely to consider placing parents in nursing homes as a violation of filial piety. Analyses of the married sub-sample (n = 140) revealed that only children were more likely to co-reside with parents after marriage than those with siblings. And the main reason for co-residence was that the younger generation needed their parents’ help for childcare, rather than to better take care of their parents. Implications for parents’ elder care among Chinese only children were discussed.
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spelling pubmed-79829512021-03-23 Adaptations to the One-Child Policy: Chinese Young Adults’ Attitudes Toward Elder Care and Living Arrangement After Marriage Chen, Xiaochen Zhuoga, Cuo Deng, Ziqian Front Psychol Psychology After four decades of China’s family planning policy, the shrinking family size and increasing life expectancy pose special challenges for the one-child generation in terms of providing care for aging parents. The current study explored young adults’ responses to such pressure by examining their concerns about elder care, attitudes toward nursing homes, and living arrangement after marriage in a sample of 473 Chinese working young adults from six cities in China (46.9% males, M(age) = 25.1 years, 47.8% only children). Results showed that although most of the young adults reported to have thought about the issue of parents’ elder care, the majority did not worry a lot about it. Only children expressed similar levels of worrying as those with siblings did. However, educational level, rather than sibling status, was systematically related to concerns about parents’ elder care and attitudes toward nursing homes. People with higher education tended to worry less about elder care, and were less likely to consider placing parents in nursing homes as a violation of filial piety. Analyses of the married sub-sample (n = 140) revealed that only children were more likely to co-reside with parents after marriage than those with siblings. And the main reason for co-residence was that the younger generation needed their parents’ help for childcare, rather than to better take care of their parents. Implications for parents’ elder care among Chinese only children were discussed. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-03-03 /pmc/articles/PMC7982951/ /pubmed/33762995 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.608111 Text en Copyright © 2021 Chen, Zhuoga and Deng. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Chen, Xiaochen
Zhuoga, Cuo
Deng, Ziqian
Adaptations to the One-Child Policy: Chinese Young Adults’ Attitudes Toward Elder Care and Living Arrangement After Marriage
title Adaptations to the One-Child Policy: Chinese Young Adults’ Attitudes Toward Elder Care and Living Arrangement After Marriage
title_full Adaptations to the One-Child Policy: Chinese Young Adults’ Attitudes Toward Elder Care and Living Arrangement After Marriage
title_fullStr Adaptations to the One-Child Policy: Chinese Young Adults’ Attitudes Toward Elder Care and Living Arrangement After Marriage
title_full_unstemmed Adaptations to the One-Child Policy: Chinese Young Adults’ Attitudes Toward Elder Care and Living Arrangement After Marriage
title_short Adaptations to the One-Child Policy: Chinese Young Adults’ Attitudes Toward Elder Care and Living Arrangement After Marriage
title_sort adaptations to the one-child policy: chinese young adults’ attitudes toward elder care and living arrangement after marriage
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7982951/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33762995
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.608111
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