Children’s Relative Living Proximity and Intergenerational Support to Older Parents in China

Abstract

Although research has recognized the influence of geographic proximity on intergenerational support in Chinese families, the effect of siblings’ geographic proximity remains unexplored. Guided by the within-family differences approach, this study uses data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study to examine how the relativity of children’s and their siblings’ geographic proximity is associated with children’s support to older parents and how the association differs by child gender. Results show that living relatively farther among siblings is associated with providing less economic support and have less contact with parents, but this negative effect is less prominent on sons’ economic support and daughters’ contact with parents. Having siblings living at the same distance also affects children’s support behaviors. The findings reveal that support responsibilities could be differentially distributed by children’s relative living proximity among siblings and indicate the importance of considering sibling influences when studying intergenerational support in Chinese families.

Keywords

relative living proximity within-family differences sibling influences intergenerational support Chinese family

As the structural solidarity of intergenerational relationships, the geographic distance between older parents and their adult children serves as the opportunity structure shaping intergenerational interactions (or associational solidarity) and support (or functional solidarity) (Bengtson & Roberts, 1991). Farther living distance could be associated with less contact and support from adult children (Lawton et al., 1994). Studies on living proximity and intergenerational support have often focused on characteristics within parent-child dyads, without much attention paid to potential influences from other children in the family. Dyads between parents and different children are interdependent and compose an intergenerational support network (Matthews, 2002). Since supporting older parents may usually involve negotiation and coordination among sibling children in the family rather than being independent behaviors, characteristics of a child and the child-parent dyad that shape support behaviors could relate to characteristics of other children in the family and their dyads with the parent (Pillemer & Suitor, 2014; Spitze et al., 2012). Recent developments of within-family differences approaches have drawn attention to within-family influences between parent-child dyads (for a review, see Suitor et al., 2018). Still, not much is known about how siblings’ geographic location influences a child’s support behaviors, net of the child’s own living proximity to parents.

How could within-family differences in parent-child living proximity shape support to older parents is a question of high significance in contemporary Chinese families. Given high fertility rates in history, it is common for older people to have multiple non-coresident children. For older parents in the nationally representative data for the present study, among those who have non-coresident children, about 88.5% have two or more children not living with them. Rapid social and economic development has led to the rise of massive internal migration in China. Consequently, geographic locations of non-coresident children have become more dispersed for many families. Nonetheless, Chinese families remain a robust social institution for providing primary support to older members. The cultural norm of filial piety persistently plays a significant role in motivating every adult child to support aging parents. In this context, non-coresident children are essential sources of support. Although farther living distance may hinder instrumental support and in-person contact with parents, farther children could assist parents financially and keep virtual communications with them (Gruijters, 2017, 2018; Lei et al., 2015; Lin & Yi, 2011; Zhang et al., 2018). The question that remains unanswered is the extent to which siblings’ geographic proximity to parents could influence non-coresident children’s support behaviors. Besides, although daughters have become as crucial as sons in supporting their aging parents in contemporary Chinese families (Lei, 2013; Lin & Yi, 2011), gender differences persist in support expectations and practices. There has been little discussion about how sibling influences may differentially shape support from daughters and sons.

Guided by the within-family differences approach, this study develops children’s relative living proximity to conceptualize the impact of siblings’ geographic location and creates within-family measures on whether a child lives relatively closer to or farther away from the parent than his/her non-coresident siblings. The study disaggregates the impact of absolute and relative living proximity to examine how the latter influences adult children’s financial support and contact with their older parents, net of their absolute geographic distances, and how the effect differs for daughters and sons. Using data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) with fruitful information on every adult child of the older respondents, this study is the first to examine the influences of siblings’ geographic location on intergenerational support in the Chinese family context. The study extends the understanding of associations between structural solidarity and intergenerational support from a dyadic view to the scope of the family support network. It offers valuable insights into the potential division of support responsibilities among children of different geographic proximity in the family. With the emphasis on within-family dynamics and sibling influences, the research should make an essential contribution to the literature on intergenerational support in Chinese families.

Literature Review

Sibling Influences on Intergenerational Support

Intergenerational support for older parents has always been a focal issue in social gerontology research. Most studies on determinants of intergenerational support have focused on factors within parent-child dyads. It is not until recently that sibling influences on intergenerational support have caught increasing attention. A few studies on American or European families have taken within-family differences approaches to investigate how siblings’ characteristics and support behaviors could shape adult children’s support to their parents (Deane et al., 2016; Leopold et al., 2014; Pillemer & Suitor, 2006, 2014; Spitze et al., 2012; Tolkacheva et al., 2010; Wolf et al., 1997). Within-family differences approaches emphasize the interdependence of multiple parent-child dyads in the family. Adult children from the same family could live at different geographic distances to parents, face diverse competing demands from multiple life domains (e.g., work, family), and have various resources. When negotiating support arrangements, children would consider parental need, their resources and availability, and their siblings’ support capability and behaviors (Pillemer & Suitor, 2006; Wolf et al., 1997). Therefore, characteristics of one parent-child dyad and the exchange of support between the parent and child could correlate to the characteristics and exchange of support between the parent and other children in the family (Pillemer & Suitor, 2014; Spitze et al., 2012).

A handful of studies have demonstrated that siblings’ gender, age, stepchild status, relationship quality to parents, availability (i.e., competing roles and responsibilities in support, socioeconomic status, and living distance), and past exchanges of support with parents could shape adult children’s support behaviors (Deane et al., 2016; Leopold et al., 2014; Pillemer & Suitor, 2006, 2014; Spitze et al., 2012; Tolkacheva et al., 2010; Wolf et al., 1997). For example, the labor of supporting older parents is usually divided along gender lines. In U.S. families, adult daughters bear higher parental expectations for care and provide more care than sons to their older parents (Pillemer & Suitor, 2006; Wolf et al., 1997). Having more sisters may reduce the amount of parent care a child provides (Wolf et al., 1997). Regarding the influence of siblings’ geographic proximity on support, studies have found evidence of a compensation model that more support from nearby children potentially leads to less support from farther siblings. For instance, closer living distances would propel a child to be the primary caregiver for their parents among siblings (Leopold et al., 2014; Pillemer & Suitor, 2006, 2014) and lead to fewer visits reported by parents with other children (Deane et al., 2016). A sibling’s presence as a potential source of support for their parents allows children to move farther from their parents’ location (Konrad et al., 2002; Rainer & Siedler, 2009). However, one study has discovered that the emotional support provided by a non-coresident child to parents is not affected by other siblings’ geographic location (Spitze et al., 2012). Existing studies of siblings’ geographic proximity and intergenerational support in the Western family context have mainly focused on caregiving and contact. The current study provides a unique opportunity to extend the investigation to financial support in Chinese families, where, opposite to the trend in Western families, the direction of monetary transfers is mainly upward from adult children to their older parents (Logan & Bian, 2003; Secondi, 1997).

Living Proximity, Gender, and Intergenerational Support in Chinese Families

Rapid economic development and profound social transformations since the late 1970s have brought significant changes to the geographic distance between older parents and their adult children in Chinese families, making geographic locations of children from the same family more dispersed. However, despite a few pioneering studies shedding light on sibling influences on intergenerational support in Chinese families (Cong & Silverstein, 2012; Lei et al., 2015), no prior research has examined how within-family differences in siblings’ geographic location shape children’s support behaviors. Faster development in urban areas and the household registration system (hukou¹) reform allowing more labor mobility have created massive rural-to-urban migration in China. The number of internal migrants reached 221 million in 2010, accounting for about 17% of the total population (Liang et al., 2014). As a result, geographic distances substantially increase between many parents and their adult children, especially migrant children whose families of origin are in relatively underdeveloped areas (Zhang et al., 2018). While more migrant children live farther away from their parents, it is also true that some children live relatively closer. Nearly half of older parents have adult children living nearby in the same neighborhood or the same county (Lei et al., 2015). Among non-coresident married couples, most of them live close to husbands’ or wives’ parents in the same community or district (Gruijters & Ermisch, 2019). The cultural value of familism continues to hold family members together and live their lives interdependently. Endorsed by the norm of filial piety, every child is responsible for providing support and care to their parents in old age. Therefore, recognizing within-family support arrangements among children of different geographic proximity to parents becomes critical for understanding intergenerational support in contemporary Chinese families.

The support behaviors of non-coresident children deserve more scholarly attention in general because of the essential role they play in intergenerational support in Chinese families. Non-coresident children maintain frequent contact with and provide substantial support to parents in Chinese families, which may not be greatly affected by whether parents live with another child because the support could be their expression of filial respect (Bian et al., 1998; Lei et al., 2015). Only in some urban families, living with a child may reduce the amount (but not the likelihood) of financial support that parents receive from non-coresident children (Logan & Bian, 2003). Ties to non-coresident children may have gained additional importance in intergenerational support as the intergenerational coresidence rate of older people in China had dropped by roughly 30% from 1982 to 2010, resulting in only about 42% of women and 33% of men aged 65 and older lived with adult children in 2010 (Ren & Treiman, 2015).

Previous research has established that the absolute geographic distance between parents and their adult children significantly influences intergenerational support to older parents in Chinese families. Longer living distances are associated with less frequent visits or other means of contact and lower levels of instrumental and emotional support from adult children (Gruijters, 2017; Lei et al., 2015; Lin & Yi, 2011; Zhang et al., 2018). However, the negative effect of living distance is less evident in financial support. Some scholars have found no significant association between living distance and children’s financial support provision (Lin & Yi, 2011; Zhang et al., 2018). Others with more rural samples have discovered that controlling for income, children living farther away provide more financial support to their parents than children who live closer (Gruijters, 2018; Lei et al., 2015) because, in general, migrant children send back more money to their rural parents as remittances than nonmigrant children (Gruijters, 2018). Although research has recognized the influence of geographic proximity on intergenerational support in Chinese families, most of them have focused on the absolute living distance in the parent-child dyad, neglecting the potential impact of the relativity of other children’s geographic location in the family. This study fills the paucity of literature on sibling influences on intergenerational support in Chinese families from the angle of within-family differences in children’s geographic proximity. The study disaggregates the impact of absolute and relative living proximity on intergenerational support, yielding additional insights into support arrangements among non-coresident siblings at different geographic distances to parents.

Sibling’s geographic proximity may have different influences on daughters’ and sons’ support behaviors because of notable gender differences in support expectations, especially in rural Chinese families (Guo et al., 2009). For financial support, although women’s empowerment in education and earning capacity (Song et al., 2012) have enabled daughters to be as likely, or even more likely than sons to provide financial support to parents in China (Gruijters, 2018; Hu, 2017; Lei, 2013), sons still provide more frequent and larger amounts of financial support than daughters (Gruijters, 2018; Lin & Yi, 2011). Particularly in rural areas where the patrilineal emphasis in family culture and kinship system remains, and the patrilocal residence after marriage still dominates (Gruijters & Ermisch, 2019), married daughters are more likely to devote their economic resources to their husband’s family, thus make significantly smaller amounts of money transfers to their own parents than married sons (Gruijters, 2018). Due to male advantage in the gender wage gap (Xiu & Gunderson, 2013) and the remains of gendered filial norms in financial support, sons may be expected to bear the primary responsibility of economic support. At the same time, the traditional gendered practice of filial piety is under transformation in contemporary China (Shi, 2009). Daughters continually gain importance in intergenerational support. Literature has consistently suggested that daughters provide comparable or even more instrumental (e.g., household chores, caregiving) and emotional support to parents than sons (Hu, 2017; Lei, 2013; Lin & Yi, 2011). In terms of contact, although sons may visit their parents more often than daughters, daughters are more likely to contact parents by other means such as phone calls and text messages (Gruijters, 2017). Potential reasons for the increasing importance of daughters in those support areas are not only limited to the weakening of patrilineal and patriarchal family ideology but are also related to gender identity and the gendered division of labor. Women are often socialized into caregiver and kin-keeper roles, whereas men are socialized to be family providers. Besides, women’s caregiving activities may involve smaller opportunity costs than men (Hu, 2017) due to the gender wage gap in the labor market (Xiu & Gunderson, 2013), making daughters more likely to be the caregiver for their older parents. Therefore, daughters may feel more obligated to keep frequent contact with their parents due to gender roles and the gendered expectation of filial piety. Norms of filial responsibility are likely to motivate adult children’s support behaviors (Silverstein et al., 2006). Thus, it is reasonable to assume that in areas where gendered norms of support obligations occur, children’s support behaviors may be more likely to comply with those gendered normative expectations and less sensitive to the relativity of their and siblings’ geographic proximity.

Theoretical Framework

To understand intergenerational support from non-coresident children, we should not only refer to children’s absolute living distance to parents but the relativity of children’s and their siblings’ geographic proximity as well. Therefore, this study develops the concept of children’s relative living proximity denoting whether a child lives relatively closer to or farther away from parents than his/her siblings and examines its influence on economic support and intergenerational contact. Below, I discuss possible theoretical explanations for associations between relative living proximity and children’s support behaviors and why the associations may differ between daughters and sons.

Scholars have conceptualized the association they found between one child’s farther living distance and more frequent visiting between parents and other children as a model of compensation (Daene et al., 2016). Such compensatory dynamics are also observed in caregiving, where the presence of children with characteristics that make them more prone to care for their parents (e.g., being daughters, having fewer competing demands, being emotionally close to parents) is associated with less care provided by other children in the family (Lin & Wu, 2019; Tolkacheva et al., 2010). Some scholars have explained these patterns as diffusion of responsibility, suggesting that when there are more siblings with caregiving-conducive characteristics, children would provide less care because they assume their siblings are likely to provide care and meet parents’ needs (Lin & Wu, 2019). Others have pointed to the role of sibling solidarity, indicating that siblings rely on each other to fulfill parental needs for care jointly; thus, some children may take on more caregiving responsibilities if their siblings are less able to care (Tolkacheva et al., 2010). Silverstein et al. (2008) have emphasized that the allocation of caregiving responsibilities for aging parents might result from an interactive negotiation process among siblings and be understood from a sibling bargaining framework, which economists have used to explain siblings’ decisions on parental caregiving. The bargaining framework argues that children’s support decisions not only base on weighing their incentives and costs of care but also are likely to be affected by their anticipation of how much care their siblings might provide given siblings’ incentives and costs (Checkovich & Stern, 2002; Silverstein et al., 2008). According to the bargaining framework, geographic locations could be a potential strategic element in the sibling negotiation to share caregiving responsibilities for their parents (Konrad et al., 2002; Pezzin et al., 2007; Rainer & Siedler, 2009). Knowing that the closer siblings could not easily shirk their support duties, children living relatively farther from their parents than their siblings may have a bargaining power advantage and thus devote less support effort in the expectation that closer siblings will respond by increasing their support to meet parents’ needs (Rainer & Siedler, 2009). Following these theoretical arguments, the present study hypothesizes that children who live relatively farther away from parents in the family provide less economic support and have less frequent contact with parents than children who live relatively closer to parents among their siblings (Hypothesis 1).

How is the presence of equidistant siblings associated with children’s support behaviors? Inspired by diffusion of responsibility theory and social comparison theory, which have been applied to understand the impact of sibling similarities on parental caregiving (Lin & Wu, 2019), this study develops opposite predictions on the effect of having equidistant siblings on support. According to the diffusion of responsibility theory (Darley & Latané, 1968), adult children may be less likely to help their parents if more siblings can potentially provide support to meet parents’ needs (Lin & Wu, 2019). It is conceivable that adult children may provide less economic support and have less contact with their parents when they have siblings living at the same distance as them to parents (Hypothesis 2a) because the equidistant siblings, with similar location-determined support capability, are expected to share filial duties. On the other hand, according to social comparison theory (Festinger, 1954), children are likely to compare with siblings similar in geographic distance to parents to self-evaluate their support behaviors. Such sibling comparisons could pressure children concerning whether they have provided enough support as they ought to do. Especially when not knowing how much support their siblings will provide, children may do more to avoid potential shame and guilt of not being comparable to their equidistant siblings. Therefore, a competing hypothesis is that having equidistant siblings may reinforce adult children’s support provision (Hypothesis 2b).

Gendered norms in support obligations are likely to moderate the association between relative living proximity and children’s support behaviors. The normative expectation for sons to support parents financially could motivate sons’ provision of economic support. Accordingly, the study hypothesizes that the negative impact of living relatively farther among siblings on economic support is less prominent on sons than daughters (Hypothesis 3a). Expected filial obligations for daughters to keep frequent contact with parents may raise daughters’ contact levels with parents. Therefore, the study hypothesizes that the negative impact of living relatively farther among siblings on intergenerational contact is weaker on daughters than on sons (Hypothesis 3b).

Method

Data

The study used data from the 2013 wave of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), an ongoing biennial survey on a nationally representative sample of Chinese residents aged 45 and above. CHARLS collected information on a full range of support exchange and the living distance between respondents and each of their non-coresident children. The sample of this study included all dyads between older adults aged 50 and over and their non-coresident children aged 18 and over. Parent-noncoresident child dyad was the unit of analysis. There were fewer than 0.8% missing on any independent and control variables in the analysis. Therefore, the study omitted observations with any missing, leading to 25,854 parent-noncoresident child dyads in the final sample.

Measures

Dependent variables

For economic support, parents reported the amount of money and in-kind support they received from each non-coresident child in the past year. I recoded the sum of money and in-kind support into four ordered categories, where 1 = zero RMB, 2 = 1–500 RMB, 3 = 501–1,500 RMB, and 4 = 1,500+ RMB. The cut-off points roughly divided the distribution by quartiles. Table 1 presents descriptive statistics of all variables in the total sample and subsamples of parent-daughter and parent-son dyads. About a quarter of the dyads in the total sample had no economic support from children to parents, and the percentage was much higher among the dyads with sons (30.8%) than with daughters (21.1%).

Table 1.

Descriptive Statistics for Variables in the Study.

	All Dyads		Parent-Daughter		Parent-Son
	(N = 25,854)		(N = 14,242)		(N = 11,612)
	Mean	SD	Mean	SD	Mean	SD
Dependent Variables
Economic Support to Parent in the Past Year (RMB) (Ref. Cat. = 0)
1–500	0.292	0.455	0.332	0.471	0.243	0.429
501–1,500	0.229	0.420	0.250	0.433	0.204	0.403
1,500+	0.224	0.417	0.208	0.406	0.244	0.430
Annual Visit Frequency	87.582	138.829	65.326	117.699	114.879	156.750
Annual Other Contact Frequency	119.517	138.397	101.580	124.753	141.517	150.601
Independent Variables
Has Closer Siblings (Yes = 1, No = 0)	0.306	0.461	0.351	0.477	0.251	0.434
Has Equidistant Siblings (Yes = 1, No = 0)	0.641	0.480	0.613	0.487	0.675	0.469
Has Farther Siblings (Yes = 1, No = 0)	0.335	0.472	0.302	0.459	0.376	0.484
Son (Yes = 1, No = 0)	0.449	0.497
Parent Characteristics Control Variables
Age	65.630	8.964	65.063	8.983	66.326	8.892
Father (Yes = 1, No = 0)	0.466	0.499	0.468	0.499	0.464	0.499
Married (Yes = 1, No = 0)	0.836	0.371	0.840	0.367	0.831	0.375
Number of Non-Coresident Children	3.210	1.576	3.160	1.585	3.271	1.563
Education (Ref. Cat.= Elementary and Under)
Junior High	0.152	0.359	0.157	0.364	0.146	0.354
Senior High and Above	0.087	0.282	0.089	0.284	0.086	0.280
Annual Household Income Per Capita (Ln)	6.767	2.608	6.830	2.614	6.688	2.599
Rural Hukou (Yes = 1, No = 0)	0.809	0.393	0.812	0.391	0.805	0.396
Currently Working for Pay (Yes = 1, No = 0)	0.589	0.492	0.599	0.490	0.577	0.494
Self-reported Health (Ref. Cat.= Very Good)
Good	0.132	0.339	0.131	0.337	0.134	0.341
Fair	0.472	0.499	0.475	0.499	0.468	0.499
Poor	0.316	0.465	0.316	0.465	0.316	0.465
Living Arrangement (Ref. Cat. = Not Live with Any Child)
Live with Son	0.285	0.451	0.358	0.479	0.196	0.397
Live with Daughter	0.041	0.198	0.051	0.220	0.029	0.166
Provided Economic Support to the Child (Yes = 1, No = 0)	0.158	0.365	0.148	0.355	0.171	0.376
Provided Grandchild Care to the Child (Yes = 1, No = 0)	0.148	0.355	0.080	0.271	0.232	0.422
Child Characteristics Control Variables
Age	38.522	8.811	37.876	8.805	39.315	8.753
Married (Yes = 1, No = 0)	0.920	0.271	0.942	0.234	0.894	0.308
Biological Child (Yes = 1, No = 0)	0.969	0.174	0.967	0.180	0.971	0.167
Education (Ref. Cat. = Elementary and Under)
Junior High	0.334	0.472	0.312	0.463	0.363	0.481
Senior High and Above	0.259	0.438	0.231	0.422	0.293	0.455
Rural Hukou (Yes = 1, No = 0)	0.745	0.436	0.757	0.429	0.731	0.444
Currently Working for Pay (Yes = 1, No = 0)	0.882	0.322	0.823	0.382	0.955	0.207
Absolute Living Distance to Parent (Ref. Cat. = Same Village/Neighborhood)
Same County/City/District	0.381	0.486	0.514	0.500	0.217	0.412
Another County/City/Province/Abroad	0.313	0.464	0.287	0.452	0.346	0.476

Source: China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), 2013.

For intergenerational contact, parents reported on a 1–9 scale ranging from almost every day to almost never about the frequency they saw each non-coresident child and how often they had contact with the child either by phone, text message, mail, or email. Since the nature of in-person and virtual contact differs, the study estimated visits and other contacts separately. Followed previous research (Gruijters, 2017), I recoded these two variables into an approximate number of annual frequencies of such contact. In the total sample, on average, parents and their non-coresident children saw each other 88 times per year and had non-face-to-face contact 120 times a year. Both the frequencies of visits and other contact were higher among parent-son dyads (114.9 and 141.5, respectively) than parent-daughter dyads (65.3 and 101.6, respectively) (Table 1).

Independent variables

There were three dichotomous independent variables to measure the concept of children’s relative living proximity to their parents: has closer siblings, has equidistant siblings, and has farther siblings, which respectively measured whether children had any non-coresident siblings living closer than, living in the same distance as, and living farther than them to parents. Older parents reported each child’s living distance on a 1–7 scale, ranging from in this household to abroad. Based on this question, I compared non-coresident children’s geographic location with their non-coresident siblings’ to create the three dummy variables. As seen in Table 1, close to one-third (30.6%) of the dyads consisted of adult children who had closer siblings indicating they lived relatively farther from their parents among siblings. More daughters (35.1%) lived relatively farther than sons (25.1%). About 64.1% of adult children had siblings living in the same geographic proximity to parents as they did, and such a percentage was higher among sons (67.5%) than daughters (61.3%). About one-third (33.5%) of the dyads were children who had farther siblings, implying they lived relatively closer to parents among siblings, and such a percentage was higher among sons (37.6%) than daughters (30.2%). Another key independent variable in the study was child gender, measured by a dummy variable where 0 = daughter and 1 = son. About 44.9% of the sample was son-parent dyads.

Control variables

The study controlled demographic variables of parents’ age, gender, marital status, the number of non-coresident children, and children’s age, marital status, and biological status. Literature has shown that parental need and children’s resources shape intergenerational support (Gruijters, 2018; Lin & Yi, 2011). Accordingly, the study controlled parents’ socioeconomic status (e.g., education, income, hukou, and working status) and self-reported health, indicating parental need. Adult children’s socioeconomic status (e.g., education, hukou, and working status) was controlled to measure their capacity to support. As discussed earlier, whether parents live with any child may affect the support from non-coresident children. Therefore, the analysis controlled parents’ living arrangements, measuring whether parents did not live with any child or lived with a son or a daughter. Two dummy variables indicating parents’ provision of economic support and grandchild care to the child in the past year were controlled because parental economic assistance to children may promote monetary transfers from children as repayment or exchange (Lee & Xiao, 1998) and parental help with child care could be positively associated with more financial support from adult children who received the help (Cong & Silverstein, 2011; Gruijters, 2018; Ko & Hank, 2014). Finally, the analysis controlled children’s absolute living distance from their parents. The mean variance inflation factor (VIF) of all predictors was 1.59, suggesting no concern of multicollinearity.

Analytical Strategy

The study used ordered logistic and Poisson regression models, respectively, to examine the association between children’s relative living proximity and economic support and contact. In the analysis, independent variables and groups of control variables were added step by step. Since the effect of independent variables remained robust across models, the paper only presents the full models’ results. To model gender differences, I added interaction effects between indicators of relative living proximity and child gender. The smaller BIC values showed the improvement of model performance after adding the interaction effects. Additional one-tailed t-tests were conducted to determine whether the predicted values of economic support or contact significantly differed between the interacting groups in the expected direction. Since dyads were nested within families, robust standard errors were estimated in each model, allowing for clustering by households in the data.

Results

Children’s Relative Living Proximity and Economic Support

Models 1 and 2 in Table 2 present the findings on economic support. Model 1 shows that the likelihood for children who did not have farther siblings (i.e., who might live the farthest among siblings) to provide more economic support was lower than children who had farther siblings (i.e., who lived relatively closer among siblings) (0.100 ordered log-odds lower). The finding provides evidence for hypothesis 1 that living relatively farther among siblings is associated with providing less economic support to parents. All other predictors behaved in expected directions. It is worth noting that children’s absolute living distance was positively associated with the likelihood of providing more economic support.

Table 2.

Regression Models Predicting Economic Support, Visits, and Other Contacts.

	Economic Support				Visits				Other Contacts
	Model 1		Model 2		Model 3		Model 4		Model 5		Model 6
Has Closer Siblings (Yes = 1, No = 0)	−0.043		−0.108		−0.172	**	−0.167	**	−0.192	***	−0.163	***
	(0.054)		(0.056)		(0.057)		(0.064)		(0.036)		(0.042)
Has Equidistant Siblings (Yes = 1, No = 0)	0.044		−0.041		−0.068	*	−0.101	*	−0.014		−0.044
	(0.043)		(0.048)		(0.031)		(0.043)		(0.025)		(0.032)
Has Farther Siblings (Yes = 1, No = 0)	0.100	*	0.161	**	0.023		−0.047		0.037		−0.076	*
	(0.051)		(0.054)		(0.036)		(0.047)		(0.029)		(0.036)
Son (Yes = 1, No = 0)	−0.222	***	−0.377	***	0.219	***	0.119	*	0.080	***	−0.034
	(0.039)		(0.082)		(0.026)		(0.050)		(0.020)		(0.038)
Has Closer Siblings × Son			0.205	*			−0.024				−0.082
			(0.084)				(0.091)				(0.053)
Has Equidistant Siblings × Son			0.219	**			0.058				0.054
			(0.074)				(0.048)				(0.037)
Has Farther Siblings × Son			−0.150	*			0.122	*			0.212	***
			(0.075)				(0.050)				(0.039)
Parent Characteristics
Age	0.007	*	0.007	*	−0.003		−0.003		−0.007	***	−0.007	***
	(0.003)		(0.003)		(0.002)		(0.002)		(0.002)		(0.002)
Father (Yes = 1, No = 0)	−0.049	*	−0.050	**	−0.050	***	−0.050	***	−0.035	***	−0.034	***
	(0.019)		(0.019)		(0.013)		(0.013)		(0.010)		(0.010)
Married (Yes = 1, No = 0)	0.096	*	0.096	*	0.035		0.036		0.028		0.030
	(0.047)		(0.047)		(0.032)		(0.032)		(0.028)		(0.027)
Number of Non-Coresident Children	−0.027		−0.027		0.004		0.003		−0.005		−0.006
	(0.022)		(0.022)		(0.014)		(0.014)		(0.012)		(0.012)
Education (Ref. Cat. = Elementary and Under)
Junior High	0.057		0.060		0.067	*	0.068	*	0.059	*	0.058	*
	(0.051)		(0.051)		(0.030)		(0.030)		(0.023)		(0.023)
Senior High and Above	−0.079		−0.073		0.100	*	0.103	**	0.107	***	0.108	***
	(0.081)		(0.081)		(0.040)		(0.039)		(0.030)		(0.029)
Annual Household Income	0.003		0.004		0.004		0.004		0.002		0.001
Per Capita (Ln)	(0.009)		(0.009)		(0.005)		(0.005)		(0.004)		(0.004)
Rural Hukou (Yes = 1, No = 0)	0.286	***	0.286	***	−0.245	***	−0.244	***	−0.135	***	−0.136	***
	(0.065)		(0.065)		(0.040)		(0.040)		(0.031)		(0.031)
Currently Working for Pay	−0.101	*	−0.102	*	−0.098	***	−0.098	***	−0.071	***	−0.071	***
(Yes = 1, No = 0)	(0.041)		(0.041)		(0.026)		(0.026)		(0.021)		(0.021)
Self-reported Health (Ref. Cat. = Very Good)
Good	0.072		0.064		−0.051		−0.050		−0.073	*	−0.070	*
	(0.076)		(0.076)		(0.043)		(0.043)		(0.034)		(0.034)
Fair	0.037		0.033		−0.080	*	−0.080	*	−0.099	***	−0.098	***
	(0.066)		(0.066)		(0.035)		(0.035)		(0.028)		(0.028)
Poor	−0.095		−0.100		−0.146	***	−0.146	***	−0.145	***	−0.143	***
	(0.069)		(0.069)		(0.038)		(0.038)		(0.031)		(0.030)
Living Arrangement (Ref. Cat. = Not Live with Any Child)
Live with Son	−0.127	**	−0.125	**	−0.022		−0.025		−0.048		−0.054	*
	(0.046)		(0.047)		(0.030)		(0.030)		(0.025)		(0.025)
Live with Daughter	−0.175		−0.180		−0.003		−0.009		−0.009		−0.016
	(0.110)		(0.110)		(0.066)		(0.067)		(0.051)		(0.051)
Provided Economic Support to the Child	0.155	**	0.156	**	−0.002		−0.003		0.054	*	0.054	*
(Yes = 1, No = 0)	(0.053)		(0.053)		(0.031)		(0.031)		(0.024)		(0.024)
Provided Grandchild Care to the Child	0.223	***	0.226	***	0.243	***	0.246	***	0.246	***	0.250	***
(Yes = 1, No = 0)	(0.061)		(0.061)		(0.031)		(0.031)		(0.023)		(0.023)
Child Characteristics
Age	−0.004		−0.004		0.001		0.002		−0.001		−0.001
	(0.003)		(0.003)		(0.002)		(0.002)		(0.002)		(0.002)
Married (Yes = 1, No = 0)	0.429	***	0.433	***	0.085		0.081		0.045		0.038
	(0.079)		(0.079)		(0.054)		(0.054)		(0.038)		(0.038)
Biological Child (Yes = 1, No = 0)	0.310	***	0.316	***	0.173	*	0.171	*	0.212	***	0.211	***
	(0.094)		(0.094)		(0.070)		(0.070)		(0.057)		(0.057)
Education (Ref. Cat. = Elementary and Under)
Junior High	0.241	***	0.235	***	0.015		0.013		0.061	**	0.060	**
	(0.040)		(0.040)		(0.028)		(0.028)		(0.022)		(0.022)
Senior High and Above	0.594	***	0.591	***	0.021		0.018		0.109	***	0.107	***
	(0.058)		(0.058)		(0.037)		(0.037)		(0.029)		(0.029)
Rural Hukou (Yes = 1, No = 0)	−0.354	***	−0.355	***	-0.031		−0.036		−0.034		−0.039
	(0.059)		(0.059)		(0.040)		(0.040)		(0.031)		(0.031)
Currently Working for Pay	0.395	***	0.399	***	−0.191	***	-0.188	***	−0.124	***	−0.120	***
(Yes =− 1, No = 0)	(0.052)		(0.052)		(0.036)		(0.036)		(0.028)		(0.028)
Absolute Living Distance to Parent (Ref. Cat. = Same Village/Neighborhood)
Same County/City/District	0.404	***	0.378	***	−1.121	***	−1.122	***	−0.781	***	−0.774	***
	(0.053)		(0.053)		(0.037)		(0.038)		(0.027)		(0.027)
Another County/City/Province/Abroad	0.786	***	0.748	***	−2.638	***	−2.632	***	−1.096	***	−1.081	***
	(0.071)		(0.072)		(0.077)		(0.077)		(0.038)		(0.038)
Constant (Cut1)	0.653		0.586
	(0.270)		(0.270)
Constant (Cut2)	1.975		1.910
	(0.271)		(0.271)
Constant (Cut3)	3.106		3.042
	(0.272)		(0.272)
Intercept					5.509	***	5.568	***	5.836	***	5.902	***
					(0.168)		(0.169)		(0.135)		(0.135)
Chi²	780.99		796.41		4327.36		4369.60		3706.43		3818.44
df	29		32		29		32		29		32
BIC	69750.22		69729.43		2980476		2978181		3105448		3095308
N	25,854		25,854		25,854		25,854		25,854		25,854

Note. Robust standard errors are presented in parentheses, which are adjusted for 6,770 clusters in the sample.

Source: China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), 2013.

*p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001.

Model 2 shows that the effect of relative living proximity on economic support significantly differed between dyads with daughters and sons (Table 2). To visually illustrate gender moderating effects, Figure 1 presents the predicted probabilities of providing economic support of 1,500+ RMB by indicators of relative living proximity and child gender. Results reveal support for hypothesis 3a that the negative impact of living relatively farther on economic support was only observed among daughters. Bars at the top show that having closer siblings (i.e., living relatively farther among siblings) significantly reduced daughters’ likelihood to provide economic support of 1,500+ RMB (p < 0.05), but it did not affect that of sons. Additionally, bars at the bottom indicate daughters who did not have siblings living farther than them (i.e., who might live the farthest among siblings) were significantly less likely to provide 1,500+ RMB economic support than daughters who had farther siblings (i.e., who lived relatively closer among siblings) (p < 0.01). However, this difference was not found for sons. Evidence for hypothesis 2b that having equidistant siblings is associated with children providing more support was found in sons’ economic support. Bars in the middle suggest sons who had siblings living at the same distance as themselves were more likely to provide 1,500+ RMB economic support than their counterparts who did not have equidistant siblings (p < 0.01), but this difference was not observed among daughters.

Figure 1.

Predicted probabilities of providing 1500+ RMB economic support to parents by children’s relative living proximity and gender (with 95% CIs). Source: China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), 2013.

Children’s Relative Living Proximity and Contact

Models 3 and 5 reveal that compared to children who did not have closer siblings (i.e., who might live the closest among siblings), children who had closer siblings (i.e., who lived relatively farther among siblings) visited their parents less often (0.172 log count lower) and had less contact with parents by other means (0.192 log count lower) (Table 2). These findings support hypothesis 1 that relative farther living distance among siblings is associated with lower levels of intergenerational contact with parents. Results in Model 3 also support hypothesis 2a in that children who had siblings living at the same distance as themselves paid fewer visits to parents (0.068 log count lower) than children who did not have equidistant siblings. The effects of other predictors were as expected, noting that children in absolute closer proximity had more contact (both visits and other contacts) with their parents.

There were significant interaction effects between having farther siblings and child gender on visits and other contacts, as shown in models 4 and 6 in Table 2. Figure 2 exhibits the predicted frequency of visits and other contacts by variables of relative living proximity and child gender to illustrate interaction effects visually. Results provide evidence for hypothesis 3b that the negative impact of living relatively farther on intergenerational contact is less prominent for daughters. Specifically, sons who did not have farther siblings (i.e., who might live the farthest among siblings) had less virtual contact² with parents than sons who had farther siblings (i.e., lived relatively closer among siblings) (p < 0.001). In contrast, daughters who did not have farther siblings (i.e., who might live the farthest among siblings) stayed in touch with their parents by virtual means³ more frequently than daughters who had farther siblings (i.e., lived relatively closer among siblings) (p<0.05).

Figure 2.

Predicted contact frequency with parents by children’s relative living proximity and gender (with 95% CIs). Source: China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), 2013.

Discussion

Guided by the within-family differences approach (Suitor et al., 2018), this study is the first endeavor to examine how the relativity of children’s and their siblings’ geographic proximity is associated with intergenerational support in Chinese families and whether this association differs between daughters and sons. Previous research on intergenerational support in Chinese families has often focused on the geographic distance (or structural solidarity) in individual parent-child dyads. The within-family measures on relative living proximity allow this study to shed new light on the impact of siblings’ geographic proximity on intergenerational support and the allocation of support responsibilities by relative living proximity in the family support network. The study extends the application of within-family differences approaches to the Chinese family context, which is deemed as embedding strong family solidarity and gendered practice of filial obligations.

A noteworthy finding is that living relatively farther than other children in the family could be associated with providing less economic support, paying fewer visits, and having less virtual contact with older parents. The finding is consistent with previous discoveries in Western families that children who stay closer to parents than other siblings usually provide the major share of caregiving (Konrad et al., 2002; Pillemer & Suitor, 2014), while living farther from parents is associated with parents reporting more visits with other children (Deane et al., 2016). It is important to note that the observed effects are net of children’s absolute living distance to their parents, which usually has a positive effect on children’s economic support, especially in rural Chinese families (Gruijters, 2018; Lei et al., 2015) and does not necessarily prevent regular virtual contact between adult children and their parents in China (Gruijters, 2017).

Differentials in the effect of relative and absolute living proximity underscore the importance of unraveling them in understanding intergenerational support as they may reflect different mechanisms behind support behaviors. The absolute living distance may indicate children’s resources and constraints for support in a single parent-child dyad. With higher earning capacity, migrant children may send more remittances to their parents. Although proximity to parents could enable more visits, communication technologies have expanded the opportunity structure for virtual intergenerational contact in long distances (Gruijters, 2017). In contrast, the findings on relative living proximity suggest probable compensatory dynamics in the distribution of support responsibilities among siblings in different geographic proximity to parents (Deane et al., 2016). The negative association between relative living distance and economic support and contact provided to parents may partly be explained by diffusion of support responsibility among siblings at different geographic locations or perhaps reflects sibling solidarity in cooperating support to meet parents’ needs. The patterns may also result from possible sibling negotiations on the allocation of support responsibilities in which geographic locations may serve as a strategic element and cause bargaining power asymmetry among siblings of different geographic proximity. It is also possible that children who are more caring than other siblings are likely to stay closer to their parents (Rainer & Siedler, 2009). It is worth noting that although these explanations offer diverse angles to understand differentials in support behaviors among siblings at different geographic locations, they remain speculative and require further research.

The study found mixed effects of the presence of equidistant siblings. On the one hand, having equidistant siblings reinforced sons’ economic support, but not daughters’. Unlike caregiving or visiting, siblings could be quite reticent about the monetary support they provide to parents and thus less likely to coordinate on it. Therefore, equidistant siblings could be a source of pressure from sibling comparisons rather than someone who will share the duties. Besides, the filial expectation is stronger for sons than daughters to support their parents financially. Without apparent anticipation of how much their siblings provide, to avoid possible shame and guilt of not being comparable to their equidistant siblings, sons tended to provide more economic support. On the other hand, the study found that children paid fewer visits to their parents when having equidistant siblings. Unlike receiving economic support, parents’ time for children’s visiting has a zero-sum nature. Therefore, siblings are likely to be more cooperative in visiting. The responsibilities of maintaining frequent contact with parents could diffuse among children at the same distance to parents as they have the similar capability of visiting in terms of geographic distance. The finding is consistent with the literature that each child provides less contact per capital when having more siblings (Lei et al., 2015).

Child gender had a moderating effect on the association between relative living proximity and intergenerational support. The negative effect of living relatively farther was not observed on sons’ economic support and daughters’ contact with their parents, suggesting an essential role normative expectations could play in shaping support behaviors. In support areas where children of a specific gender are expected to bear the primary support responsibility (e.g., sons for economic support and daughters for contact), their support behaviors could be motivated by these gendered filial norms, thus offsetting the negative impact of living relatively farther on providing support. For example, even living relatively farther among siblings, those sons may still feel responsible for fulfilling their parents’ economic needs, and those daughters may feel obligated to keep frequent contact with their parents. Indeed, the study found that relatively farther daughters had even more frequent contact with parents via virtual means than closer daughters.

Several limitations should be noted when interpreting these findings. First, with cross-sectional data, the study could not conclude the causal effects of children’s relative living proximity on intergenerational support. Second, due to data limitations, the study did not include potential confounding variables such as parent-child relationship quality and children’s filial values. Third, the study did not examine instrumental support and caregiving from non-coresident children because parents’ needs for such support may surge after a much older age threshold than 50. Future research on this topic should focus on parents with an older age range. Finally, the study applied a within-family differences approach to conceptualize its research questions and develop within-family measures. The estimation of within-family differences in support from children at various geographic locations is beyond this study’s scope and warrants further investigation.

Notwithstanding these limitations, the study disentangles the effect of relative and absolute living proximity on intergenerational support and reveals that support for aging parents could be differentially distributed among children at different geographic distances to parents in the family. The study extends our knowledge of sibling influences on intergenerational support to Chinese families, whose socioeconomic context and cultural norms differ widely from Western families. Against the backdrop of decreasing intergenerational coresidence, more attention needs to be paid to the allocation of support responsibilities among non-coresident children in Chinese families. The findings demonstrate the value of considering intergenerational support in the family network composed of interdependent parent-child dyads. Future research on intergenerational support in Chinese families should continue to explore within-family differences and sibling influences to untangle the complex intergenerational support process.

Footnotes

Authors’ Note

The paper was presented at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the Population Association of America at Chicago, Illinois.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Luoman Bao

Notes

Author Biography

Dr. Luoman Bao is an assistant professor in the Sociology Department at California State University, Los Angeles. Her areas include aging, health, and family. Her research focuses on diverse aging experiences and intergenerational relationships in U.S. and Asian societies, as well as their implications for older people’s health and well-being.

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