Reference no: EM131090129

Week 10: Discussion Questions

Aquilino, W. (1994)

1) Speculate about how divorces for parents with young children may differ from those of parents with adult children. How are the effects of divorce on the relationship between parents and children similar for young and adult children and how do they differ?

2) Are there differences in support exchange between parents who divorce when children are young and those who divorce when children are grown-up? 

3) Author finds that relationship quality is lower for the father-daughter relationship than for the father-son relationship. What unobserved reasons might exist for these differences?

4) What are the differences between findings about later life parental divorce and those about widowhood? How do they affect parent-child relationships in different ways?

5) Based on previous research, Aquilino suggests 7 hypotheses. Particularly, he hypothesizes that later life parental divorce will have bigger effects on children's relationship with fathers than mothers, and that the negative impact of divorce on father-child relationship quality and contact will be stronger for daughters than for sons. Also, His findings turn out to support such hypotheses. However, he provides little theoretical reasons about such hypotheses and findings. What can we think of the reasons of such results?

6) Studies about parental divorce during early childhood focus mainly on its impact on children's life and welfare. It seems to me that later life parental divorce has important implications for both children's and parents' life. In terms of parents' life and welfare, what are the implications of Aquilino's findings?

Couch, et al. (1999)

1) p. 222 "either in an emergency or with everyday activities such as errands, housework, small repairs to a car or babysitting ...did you spend a lot of time helping your parents?" Babysitting? 

2) Do partners have accurate information about the money and resources given to the other partner's parent?

3) The authors did not take into account the geographic distance between parent and child. How would distance affect the allocation of resources to elderly parents? 

4) What important economic factors can we think of in trying to understand the patterns of elder care?

Lee, Parish and Willis (1994)

1) What three theories attempt to explain intergenerational support? 

2) What are the differences between the mutual aid and the altruism models? Are they mutually exclusive? 

3) Specifically, they say, "The potential tension lies in how to achieve equitable distribution when parents would like to share some fruits of their investments in their children. Even the most self-sacrificing parent is likely to want the direction of transfers to be reversed as later points in his or her life, in the form of old-age support, repayment of loans, or help during illness. Thus, compliance by children with parental plans is crucial for the welfare of both parents and children and for society...."(p.1015). Seen in this light, both the mutual aid model and the altruism model seem to assume a kind of "old age security" or "parental repayment" in Lillard and Willis(1997)'s article. Can we say it is altruism if someone behaves in a certain way with expectation of future return?

4) How has women's changing role affected care-giving to parents, and how is it likely to affect care-giving in the future?

5) "Daughters' formal obligations end at marriage..." (p.1017) This suggests that women are free of obligations to their parents. What aspects of intergenerational support does this statement ignore? 

6) Are the distinctions between hypotheses 3 and 4,5 and 6 meaningful? 

7) What does this article tell us about the role of rapid economic growth in Taiwan in shaping the patterns of adult children's support for their parents? 

8) Their findings support weaker versions of the bargaining hypothesis. In their words, " there is a strong tendency for richer sons to bargain themselves out of coresidence. The richer sons are, instead, more likely to have parents living alone and receiving financial support or to have their parents living with some other, probably financially less fortunate, sibling." What does this finding tell us about future pattern of elder care in Taiwan, especially considering decrease in fertility?

Lillard and Willis (1997)

1) How does intergenerational support in Taiwan (Lee, Parish and Willis) differ from intergenerational support in Malaysia? What similarities exist? What explanations are there for differences? How is this different from intergenerational support in the US?

2) They present a number of hypotheses about the motives for intergenerational transfers. What are the similarities among those hypotheses? Can we say that in a sense, "old age security", "parental repayment", "risk and insurance", and "altruism" hypothesis all consider parental investment in children as a kind of old age security with expectations of later return? What are the differences among those hypotheses? How can we test each hypothesis?

3) Their results show that the number of non-coresident children who have completed their schooling and their education level are important level determinants of transfers of money form children to parents. Even if such result support the hypothesis that children can be an important source of old age security, can we say that parents behave in such a rational, economic way with the expectation of future return from their children? In other words, can we say that parental expectation of old age security is motive for parental investment in children? 

4) If parents expect a kind of old age security from investment in their children, it will be likely that they consider this before investment: investment in which child is going to be most profitable. Thus, they are likely to compare children's characteristics and personality and then decide how much money they will invest in each child. Do you know any research dealing with such relationship?