Leaning to the disadvantaged or pursuing maximum utility? The allocation of intergenerational relationship resources in Chinese families with multiple children

Published date01 April 2022
AuthorTing Li,Yongai Jin
Date01 April 2022
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12592
ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Leaning to the disadvantaged or pursuing maximum
utility? The allocation of intergenerational
relationship resources in Chinese families with
multiple children
Ting Li|Yongai Jin
Center for Population and Development
Studies, Renmin University of China, Beijing,
China
Correspondence
Yongai Jin, Center for Population and
Development Studies, Renmin University of
China, Zhongguancun Street No. 59, Haidian
District, Bejing, 100872, China.
Email: jinyongai0416@ruc.edu.cn
Funding information
National Social Science Foundation of China,
Grant/Award Number: 20BRK043
Abstract
Objective: This study examines the general patterns of
intergenerational relationships in Chinese extended fami-
lies and tests two competing viewpoints that explain how
intergenerational relationship resources are coordinated
within the family: pursuing maximum economic utility
versus leaning toward the disadvantaged family members.
Methods: By using a national representative survey of
older population, we constructed four intergenerational
relationship types and conducted hierarchical multinomial
logistic analyses to test the hypotheses.
Results: The results showed that tightknit and loose rela-
tionship types shared 72% of the four types, reflecting a
strong intergenerational solidarity among Chinese fami-
lies. Parents with higher socioeconomic and health status
tend to form closer relationships with their less accom-
plished children. However, when parents have poorer sta-
tus in either socioeconomic or health factors, they would
have a tighter relationship with their more accomplished
children.
Conclusions: These results support the second viewpoint
that Chinese families primarily respond to the immediate
needs of vulnerable members with a possible sacrifice of
economic efficiency. The finding further suggests that Chi-
nese extended families still serve as safety nets to guarantee
the basic needs of its members and provide important
resources to manage external social risks.
Implications: The study contributes to the theoretical liter-
ature by adopting a collective family perspective and
advances the understanding of how Chinese extended fam-
ilies are organized. It also has important implications that
Received: 5 September 2020Revised: 3 February 2021Accepted: 29 May 2021
DOI: 10.1111/fare.12592
© 2021 National Council on Family Relations.
526 Family Relations. 2022;71:526541.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/fare
policies aiming to strengthen family solidarity should be
adopted to support long-term development of families,
which is crucial for Chinese society to cope with the chal-
lenges of rapid population aging.
KEYWORDS
allocation of family resources, China, collective family perspective,
intergenerational relationship, maximum utility, siblings
INTRODUCTION
Over the past several decades, China has experienced dramatic social transformations from a
planned economy to a market economy with a rapid urbanization process that reshaped almost
every aspect of society. The Chinese family, as a basic structural and functional unit, is also
undergoing profound changes. The family size continues to decline, and fewer generationslive
together. However, the collapse of large extended families does not necessarily lead to the
decline of family (Hareven, 1976; Silverstein & Bengtson, 1997). Many studies have suggested
that changes in living arrangement or geographic separations do not destroy family connections
(Shanas, 1979; Xu et al., 2019). Instead, there emerges a loose, informally structured kinship
network, within which mutual assistance and emotional support persist. This network usually is
defined as the modified extended family or the latent kin matrix (Riley, 1983).
Intergenerational relationships, referring to the interactions between older parents and their
adult children, are the most critical dynamic within the matrix. Compared with living arrange-
ments or functional exchanges, this relationship carries a broader connotation that encompasses
several dimensions, such as structure, contact, affinity, consensus, function, and norms
(Bengtson & Roberts, 1991; de Jong Gierveld et al., 2012). A cohesive relationship is often end-
owed with a high level of interpersonal trust, greater emotional attachment, and an abundance
of mutual support, which act as resources for individuals and facilitate collective action
(Coleman, 1994; Kawachi & Berkman, 2000), whereas an estranged intergenerational relation-
ship usually has few transfers of resources across generations (Bengtson et al., 2002). Therefore,
intergenerational relationships may work as channels directing the flow of individual resources,
such as health, money, and labor within the family. To the extent that intergenerational rela-
tionships mirror the potential resources embedded in the latent kin matrix that can be activated
when help is needed, we refer to the patterns of intergenerational relationships across family
members as the distribution of intergenerational relationship resources in the following text.
Research on intergenerational relationships has emerged as a popular topic in the field not
only because of its importance but also due to its complexities (Fingerman et al., 2020). For
example, the intergenerational relationship often involves both vertical and horizontal scopes.
The vertical scope, which has been frequently studied, refers to the dyadic nature of the rela-
tionship, indicating that the intergenerational relationship depends on the characteristics of
both parents and children. Comparatively, the horizontal scope that denotes the distribution of
intergenerational relationship resources among siblings is largely understudied in the literature.
Note that the horizontal scope does not indicate the relationship among siblings but suggests
the parentchild relationship can be affected by the characteristics of other siblings. It is evident
in multiple-child families that the parents may hold different types of intergenerational relation-
ships with each child (Ma & Wen, 2016). Understanding how intergenerational relationship
resources are coordinated within the family is therefore interesting to examine.
Only a few studies explicitly investigated this particular topic (Fingerman et al., 2009;
Friedman & Seltzer, 2010; Grigoryeva, 2017; Ma & Wen, 2016). They generally explored either
how older parents distributed their supportive resources to adult children or how siblings
RELATIONSHIP RESOURCES IN CHINESE FAMILIES527

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