Abstract:
Proportion of elderly, aged 60 years and over, is growing very rapidly in Thailand and recent increased migration has led to a greater dispersion of adult children of elderly. Due to demographic and social changes, living arrangement of elderly is changing and intergenerational relationship of elderly with their non-coresident adult children is so far unknown in Thailand.
Using exploratory factor analysis on data from the 2011 Survey of Older Persons in Thailand (n=27,496 elderly), this study aims to find the determinant factors and level of intergenerational relationship of elderly Thai with non-coresident adult children. Attempts also have been made for testing similarity of level of relationship of study subjects depending on their gender and marital status.
A seven-factor factor structure has been identified for the intergenerational relationship of elderly with their non-coresident adult children which explains 67.3% of total variation. Households’ member composition, children companionship structure, and personal characteristics of elderly are major contributing factors for the unobserved intergenerational relationship. About 57% of study subjects have moderate level of relationship and there exist significant differences on these levels (low, moderate and high) with gender and marital status. Result reveals that the overall intergenerational relationship level of elderly mothers is better than elderly fathers. The level of relationship varies for elderly mothers but not for fathers depending on whether they are divorced or not (e.g. divorced elderly mother showed strengthening relationship).
Results suggest to consider gender as a cross-cutting determinant for future research on intergenerational relationship of elderly
Key Words: Elderly, Intergenerational relationship, Thailand
Moderator: Suporn Jaratsit
July 9, 2014
