‘Only children’ and their coalition of parents: Considering grandparents and parents as joint caregivers in urban Xiamen, China

Abstract

This article presents the important, but overlooked, role that is played by grandparents in contemporary China as joint caregivers with parents in raising only children. Grounded on empirical data, collected through ethnographic and survey methods in urban China, the article identifies the 'intergenerational parenting coalition' as a culturally appropriate unit of analysis for understanding child rearing within the multigenerational family in China. The social forces that have given rise to the contemporary multigenerational family in China are reviewed. Qualitative analyses of four such families are used to illustrate the unique family dynamics and patterns of influence particular to the intergenerational parenting coalition.

Oversized Loads: Child Parentification in Low-Income Families and Underlying Parent–Child Dynamics

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“…Planners should remember that older people often have more time for child-care. In China, it is grandparents, not parents, who tend to take primary responsibility for child-rearing, as parents are often working very long hours (Goh & Kuczynski, 2010). Our results suggest that if planners in China target climate change adaptation messages to older people, there could be a pay-off, where their knowledge and values are transmitted to the next generation, paving the way for greater acceptance of green-infrastructure as an adaptive response.…”

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