Receipt of care among older parents in China: More children, more child caregivers?

Adult children are expected to care for their parents in China, but what are the opportunities to do so when family sizes decrease? Guided by the intergenerational solidarity theory, we hypothesize that older Chinese parents who have more children have more child caregivers. Parents’ place of residence (rural versus urban) is expected to influence this relationship. Older parents who have more daughters and more near or resident children are likely to have more child caregivers. Those who have at least one near or resident daughter-in-law are expected to have fewer child caregivers. Data are from the 2018 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (aged 65-102, mean age 76; 806 widowed and 909 married respondents). We conducted negative binominal regression analyses stratified by marital status.