Types of Relations between Adult Children and Elderly Parents in Taiwan: Mechanisms Accounting for Various Relational Types1

INTRODUCTIONIn recent decades, Taiwan has experienced steadily declining fertility and increased longevity expectation. As a result of the changing population structure, the elderly dependency ratio is expected to advance from 13.8% in 2006 to 30.3% in 2026 and to 67% in 2051. With a cultural heritage of strong filial piety, support of elderly parents has become a highly significant issue in the face of a drastically aging population.From the perspective of the traditional Chinese family, a three-generational household or the co-residence of adult children with elderly parents is considered the ideal realization of filial piety. Although cultural norms toward elderly support remain intact in Taiwan (Yi and Chang, 2008), the actual co-residence between adult children and elderly parents has gradually declined to approximately 113 of households (TI and Chang, 19%; Tseng, et al., 2006) while single elders as well as elderly conjugal households have increased (Yang and Tseng, 2000). The interplay of the dominant filial norm and the emerging nuclearization of both young and old generations is expected to produce complicated intergenerational relations. An attempt is thus made to examine the increasing majority of those adults who are not co-residing with elderly parents and to investigate how they approximate the Confucian ideal in a non-coresident framework. This subject is of particular importance in the Chinese cultural context, which continues to value elderly support with co-residence receiving uncontroversial social recognition at the abstract level.In the Chinese setting, the most salient aspect of intergenerational relations is perhaps support provided to one's elders. Elderly support in the typical Chinese definition emphasizes the uni-dimensional dependency of elderly parents on adult children. Thus, the support of elderly parents is usually considered as static and dependent relations, with adult children fulfilling the expected filial behavior. Consequently, the emotional and reciprocal aspects, as well as resource exchanges between generations tend to be overlooked (Lin, 2000). Since intergenerational relations in actuality involve various aspects of exchange, this paper will explore the intergenerational relations by incorporating the essential dimensions proposed by the solidarity model (Bengtson and Schrader, 1982; Roberts et al., 1991), and will investigate contacts, physical and emotional supports, as well as norms held between elderly parents and their adult children in Taiwan. This line of exploration is yet to be developed in East Asia, findings will allow us to present an overall profile of the family processes emerging in a society undergoing rapid social change. Types of intergenerational relations derived and mechanisms accounting for the variation will provide useful information regarding the family outcome of the interplay between traditional norms and resource restrictions in a contemporary non-western setting.THE INTERGENERATIONAL RELATIONS IN TAIWANESE FAMILIESOne basic motive for studying intergenerational relations in Taiwan results from the academic interests in understanding future changes in family structure. In general, co-residence with elderly parents is the key to distinguish between family structure into nuclear family versus complex family (such as the stem family and joint family). Hence, in order to capture possible changes in the family structure, current practice as well as attitudes toward elderly support have been investigated. Specifically, elderly support is investigated in terms of the living arrangement and the economic suppoo between generations (Chen, 2006; Yeh, 1997; Yi and Chen, 1998). Intergenerational relations pertaining to the support or exchange attitudes and behaviors have thus become focal subjects in analyzing the development of family structure in Taiwan.There are two major clusters of research on intergenerational relations in Taiwan. …