Parental status and late-life well-being in rural China: the benefits of having multiple children

Abstract

Objectives: This study examined potential differences among childless elders, elders with one child, and elders with multiple children in rural China in their levels of depression and life satisfaction, and investigated the mechanism behind the potential differences.Methods: The sample consisted of 1224 older adults in rural Anhui province, China. ANOVA tests were carried out to compare the three groups in depression and life satisfaction, respectively. Multiple regressions were carried out to predict depression and life satisfaction, with (1) parental status, (2) individual attributes (i.e., sociodemographic variables and functional health), and (3) variables representing family relations (i.e., living arrangement, intergenerational contact, and family support) entered sequentially in each regression.Results: Overall, childless elders in rural China had significantly higher level of depression and lower level of life satisfaction than did older parents. The primary reason for such group differences was lack of monetary support from adult children, the effect of which was conditioned upon the income level of older adults. With a high level of income, the benefit of monetary support from children was negligible. However, the mere presence of multiple children was associated with a higher life satisfaction, independent of personal attributes and potential monetary support from children.Conclusion: This study contributed to the ‘missing link’ in the explanation by identifying the pathways through which parental status affect individual well-being. The findings indicate that local contexts such as affluence, social norms, and available formal support all play a role in shaping the consequences of childlessness in later life.

Keywords:

• parental status
• depression
• life satisfaction
• rural China
• local contexts

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by grants from the Fogarty International Center of the National Institutes of Health (R03TW01060-01) and the US–China Institute and School of Social Work at University of Southern California. I thank Merril Silverstein, Shuzhuo Li, and Iris Chi for their leadership in the largest research project and Dongmei Zuo for her contribution to data collection. I also thank Yawen Li and Jay I. Chok for their helpful feedback to the manuscript.