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Population aging is a key public health issue facing many nations, and is particularly pronounced in many Asian countries. At the same time, attitudes toward filial obligation are also rapidly changing, with a decreasing sense that children are responsible for caring for elderly parents. This investigation blends the family versus nonfamily mode of social organization framework with a life course perspective to provide insight into the processes of ideational change regarding filial responsibility, highlighting the influence of education and international travel. Using data from a longitudinal study in Nepal—the Chitwan Valley Family Study—results demonstrate that education and international travel are associated with a decrease in attitudes toward filial obligation. However, findings further reveal that the impact of education and international travel vary both across the life course and by gender.

Objective This study investigated the effect of temporary labor migration on spouses' marital quality. Background How temporary international labor migration affects the marital relationship remains unclear. Research shows migration increases couples' risk of dissolution, whereas studies of spouses' marital quality—much of which is cross‐sectional and/or limited to either internal or joint migration—is more mixed. This lack of consensus masks the possibility that, under certain conditions, migration may improve spouses' marital quality. Method This study uses data from the Chitwan Valley Family Study, a panel study set in Nepal, and primary data collected among a subsample of migrant husbands (in East Asia, Middle East) and their wives and nonmigrant couples (in Nepal). Results Findings from linear regression models show that, relative to non‐migrant spouses, spouses engaged in temporary international labor migration report significantly higher marital quality—less conflict and more love—net of marital quality assessed 6 years earlier. However, these benefits are not enjoyed equally between spouses: husbands' marital quality improves, whereas changes in their wives' are less conclusive. Conclusion The fact that these benefits (a) diverge from previous understandings and (b) vary by spouse's gender extends current understandings of the conditions shaping this association: social and structural forces supporting men as breadwinners, a strong husband–wife bond facilitating husbands' migration, and marriage‐protective social environments at both ends of migration.

Personal networks yield important health benefits for individuals, in part by providing more opportunities to be in the company of others throughout daily life. Social accompaniment is generally believed to protect against momentary feelings of loneliness, although this hypothesis remains understudied. We examine how personal network size shapes older adults’ experiences of momentary loneliness and whether this association varies by momentary social accompaniment. We use three waves of ecological momentary assessments (EMA; N = 12,359) and personal network data from 343 older adults in the Chicago Health and Activity Space in Real-Time study. Older adults with large personal networks experienced more intense momentary loneliness compared with those with smaller social networks when they were momentarily alone. This association was more pronounced among men. We discuss how research approaches that bridge global and momentary measures of social connectedness can reveal important nuances of our understanding of how interpersonal factors influence later-life well-being over time.

Opportunities to document associations between macro-level changes in social organization and the spread of new individual attitudes are relatively rare. Moreover, of the factors generally understood to be influential, little is known about the potential mechanisms that make them so powerful. Here we use longitudinal measures from the Chitwan Valley Family Study (CVFS) to describe the processes of ideational change across 12 years among a representative sample from a rural agrarian setting in South Asia. Findings from lagged dependent variable models show that (1) two key dimensions of social organization-education and international travel-are strongly associated with change in attitudes, net of prior attitudes; (2) reorganization of education and travel are associated with attitudes toward ideal age at marriage; and (3) this association varies by gender. Using the study's prospective design, we document not only these important associations but also potential mechanisms of education and travel-exposure to the English language and friends' international travel experience-as potentially powerful social influences on individuals' attitudes, independent of their own experiences.