Purchasing Piety? Coresidence of Married Children With Their Older Parents in Japan

Abstract

We investigated the conditions under which married children live with their older parents in Japan. We focused on how needs and resources in each generation are associated with whether married couples live with their parents in parent-headed and child-headed households, and we also investigated difference in power relations between older and younger generations and between children and their spouses. We analyzed a nationally representative sample of older parents (n = 3,853) and their married children (n = 8,601) from the 1999 Nihon University Japanese Longitudinal Study of Aging (NUJLSOA). Mutinomial regression revealed that married children with relatively affluent parents tended to live with them in parent-headed households and that married children with parents who are in relatively poor health or who are widowed tended to live with them in child-headed households. We also found that less-educated married children tended to live in the households of their higher-income parents, suggesting that parents may be "purchasing" traditional arrangements with less-affluent children. In addition, children with an educational advantage over their spouses were more likely to have parents living with them in child-headed coresident households. We conclude that traditional multigenerational coresidence has become a commodity negotiated within families based on relative resources and needs within and across generations.

Who Coresides With Parents? An Analysis Based on Sibling Comparative Advantage

“…However, in reality, retired parents may hold accumulated wealth. They can transfer wealth to their children to affect their choices, such as "purchasing piety" (Takagi and Silverstein 2011). Therefore, we are also interested in knowing whether parents' wealth ownership affects the decision about with whom to coreside in an extended family.…”

Public transfers and living alone among the elderly

“…Thus, some older people, especially those with economic resources and spacious housing, may prefer 'buying coresidence' to 'buying privacy.'" Along the same lines, in their study of Japan, which has a cultural context similar to that of Korea, Takagi and Silverstein (2011) note that "traditional multigenerational coresidence has become a commodity negotiated within families based on relative resources and needs within and across generations." Together with the ambivalent attitudes, the modest amount of the BOAP also appears to explain the mixed results.…”

Implementing Digital Storytelling for Health-Related Outcomes in Older Adults: Protocol for a Systematic Review

“…Various empirical analyses have identified marital status and income as powerful predictors of older persons' living arrangements (Chaudhuri and Roy, 2007;Gaymu and others, 2006;Mehio-Sibai and others, 2009;Panigrahi, 2009;Shideed and others, 2013). The costs of housing and the health status of older persons also factor in to decisions about intergenerational co-residence in some contexts (da Vanzo and Chan, 1994;Selzer and Friedman, 2013;Takagi and Silverstein, 2011;Zimmer and Korinek, 2010). Furthermore, older persons' living arrangements are affected by sex differences in mortality at older ages, with a high propensity for living alone observed among widows (Gierveld and others, 2001).…”