scholarly journals Intergenerational Caregiving Patterns, BMI, and Gender Gaps Among the Sandwich Generation in China

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 510-511
Author(s):  
Jingwen Liu ◽  
Feinian Chen

Abstract Existing literatures yield established evidence about the heightened stress brought by multiple roles and potential role overload across work-family context, but little is known about the BMI levels of the “sandwich” caregivers within families and the associated gender inequalities. Indeed, the Chinese pivotal generations are exposed to unshared stress and higher health risks considering that intergenerational support still predominates the caregiving patterns for the oldest old and dependent children under current socioeconomic backgrounds. Using 2011 and 2013 waves of China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS, N = 12186), we examine associations of BMI and intergenerational caregiving patterns among the “sandwich generation” aged 45 to 69. We find that the sandwich generation with at least one parent alive and one grandchild under 16 have higher BMI (24.2, within obesity range) than their counterparts (23.7, within normal range). A higher proportion of females act as caregivers and especially high-intensity caregivers than males, and they also score one-unit higher in BMI than males (23.4). Fixed effect regression results indicate that simultaneous caregiving to both parents and young grandchildren significantly advances individuals’ BMI levels, while no evidence shows similar negative effect of providing care to one generation. Moreover, high-intensity caregiving (1000 hours and above during the past year) is associated with elevated BMI for females but not for males. The gendered caregiving patterns and health implications inform the physical and psychological vulnerability of the pivotal generation and the necessities of gender-specific intervention in middle and later life.

Author(s):  
Ruth Milkman

This book examines the historical and contemporary intersections of class and gender inequalities in the U.S. labor market, as well as efforts to challenge those inequalities. Drawing on four decades of research that dates back to the 1970s, it investigates the dynamics of job segregation by sex—the linchpin of gender inequality. It considers the relationship between women workers and labor unions and the American labor movement more generally. It also discusses union responses to workforce feminization, along with the sexual division of labor in the automobile industry during World War II. After explaining how the growing class inequality among women has contributed to employment growth in paid domestic labor and assessing these growing class inequalities in the context of work–family policy, the book concludes with an analysis of class-based disparities among women in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries by comparing the gender dynamics of the Great Depression of the 1930s and those of the Great Recession associated with the 2008 financial crisis.


2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (11) ◽  
pp. 2911-2934 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rob J. Gruijters

In China, it has historically been the responsibility of sons rather than daughters to provide economic support to older parents. This study used a sample of 12,389 non-coresident children to analyze whether such gender differences persist in contemporary rural China and how they can be explained. A two-part model showed that daughters were somewhat more likely to remit to parents, although sons provided higher amounts. The support of parents by both daughters and sons was found to be strongly related to out-migration and the receipt of grandchild care, but the negative effect of marriage was stronger for daughters. These findings imply a weakening of the traditional gendered division of intergenerational support. The increased importance of daughters as a source of economic security in later life is likely to reduce parents’ preference for sons.


2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (12) ◽  
pp. 1677-1704 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monika Wilińska ◽  
Wioletta Grzenda ◽  
Jolanta Perek-Białas

Drawing on the debates regarding work–family reconciliation in later life, we examine the extent to which the labor market position of grandmothers and nongrandmothers can be explained by their varied family situations. The data for this study comes from the Generations and Gender Survey for Poland and includes 5,999 women aged 45+ years. We use multinominal logistic regression models to explore the link between different family situations and labor market withdrawal into unemployment, sick/disability leave, and retirement. Our results indicate that neither caring for older parents nor living with children has significant effects on women’s labor activity. However, living with a disabled person reduces the chances for women’s employment significantly. In addition, women who have grandchildren have lower chances for being employed as compared with those without grandchildren. We discuss these findings in relation to work–family balance policies and research.


2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (10) ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xieping Chen ◽  
Qian Xie ◽  
Yuting Yang

Parent–adolescent communication is assumed to be an important factor affecting adolescent smoking behavior. However, the inner mechanism accounting for this association has still not been clarified in research. Our purpose in this study was to examine the relationships between parent–adolescent communication, adolescent smoking behavior, and depression, as well as gender differences in the relationship between depression and adolescent smoking behavior. Participants were 1,134 students at 6 junior high schools in China who completed the Parent-Adolescent Communication Scale, the Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale, and the Smoking Behavior Test. Results showed that parent-adolescent communication had a significant negative effect on adolescent smoking behavior and depression partially mediated the relationship between parent–adolescent communication and adolescent smoking behavior. In addition, gender moderated the relationship between depression and adolescent smoking behavior. Overall, these findings may help to promote better understanding of the relationship between parent–adolescent communication and adolescent smoking behavior.


Author(s):  
Michael Levien

Since the mid-2000s, India has been beset by widespread farmer protests against “land grabs.” Dispossession without Development argues that beneath these conflicts lay a profound transformation in the political economy of land dispossession. While the Indian state dispossessed land for public-sector industry and infrastructure for much of the 20th century, the adoption of neoliberal economic policies since the early 1990s prompted India’s state governments to become land brokers for private real estate capital—most controversially, for Special Economic Zones (SEZs). Using long-term ethnographic research, the book demonstrates the consequences of this new regime of dispossession for a village in Rajasthan. Taking us into the diverse lives of villagers dispossessed for one of North India’s largest SEZs, it shows how the SEZ destroyed their agricultural livelihoods, marginalized their labor, and excluded them from “world-class” infrastructure—but absorbed them into a dramatic real estate boom. Real estate speculation generated a class of rural neo-rentiers, but excluded many and compounded pre-existing class, caste, and gender inequalities. While the SEZ disappointed most villagers’ expectations of “development,” land speculation fractured the village and disabled collective action. The case of “Rajpura” helps to illuminate the exclusionary trajectory of capitalism that underlay land conflicts in contemporary India—and explain why the Indian state is struggling to pacify farmers with real estate payouts. Using the extended case method, Dispossession without Development advances a sociological theory of dispossession that has relevance beyond India.


Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 355
Author(s):  
Edyta Charzyńska ◽  
Magdalena Sitko-Dominik ◽  
Ewa Wysocka ◽  
Agata Olszanecka-Marmola

Although spirituality has been considered a protective factor against shopping addiction, the mechanisms involved in this relationship are still poorly recognized. The present study aims to test the association of daily spiritual experiences, self-efficacy, and gender with shopping addiction. The sample consisted of 430 young adults (275 women and 155 men), with a mean age of 20.44 (SD = 1.70). The Daily Spiritual Experiences Scale, the General Self-Efficacy Scale, and the Bergen Shopping Addiction Scale were used to measure the study variables. The results showed that: (1) Daily spiritual experiences had a direct negative effect on shopping addiction; (2) daily spiritual experiences were positively related to self-efficacy, thought the effect was moderated by gender; (3) self-efficacy negatively correlated with a shopping addiction; and (4) the indirect effect of daily spiritual experiences on shopping addiction through self-efficacy was significant for women but insignificant for men. The findings confirm that spirituality protects young adults against developing a shopping addiction. They also suggest that when introducing spiritual issues into shopping addiction prevention or treatment programs, the gender-specific effects of spirituality on shopping addiction via self-efficacy should be considered to adequately utilize young women’s and men’s spiritual resources.


Author(s):  
Tuija M. Mikkola ◽  
Hannu Kautiainen ◽  
Minna Mänty ◽  
Mikaela B. von Bonsdorff ◽  
Hannu Koponen ◽  
...  

Abstract Purpose The purpose of this study was to compare the use of antidepressants over 6 years between family caregivers providing high-intensity care and a matched control population using register-based data. Methods The study includes all individuals, who received family caregiver’s allowance in Finland in 2012 (n = 29,846 females, mean age 66 years; n = 12,410 males, mean age 71 years) and a control population matched for age, sex, and municipality of residence (n = 59,141 females; n = 24,477 males). Information on purchases of antidepressants, including the number of defined daily doses (DDD) purchased, between 2012 and 2017 was obtained from the national drugs reimbursement register. Results During the follow-up, 28.5% of female caregivers and 23.5% of the female controls used antidepressants, while the numbers for males were 21.1% and 16.4%, respectively. Adjusted for socioeconomic status, female caregivers used 43.7 (95% confidence interval 42.4–45.0) and their controls used 36.2 (35.3–37.2) DDDs of antidepressants per person-year. Male caregivers used 29.6 (27.6–31.6) and their controls used 21.6 (20.2–23.0) DDDs of antidepressants per person-year. Among female caregivers, the relative risk for use of antidepressants was similar (about 1.3) from 20 to 70 years, after which the relative risk declined. In male caregivers, the relative risk was highest (about 1.4–1.5) between 45 and 65 years. Conclusions Family caregivers providing high-intensity care use more antidepressants and hence, are likely to have poorer mental health than the age-matched general population in virtually all age groups. However, the magnitude of the higher use varies as a function of age and gender.


2014 ◽  
Vol 26 (10) ◽  
pp. 1693-1702 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anke Bonnewyn ◽  
Ajit Shah ◽  
Ronny Bruffaerts ◽  
Koen Demyttenaere

ABSTRACTBackground:Death wishes are not uncommon in older persons, and to date, several risk factors have been identified. The presence of these risk factors is insufficient to fully understand why some older people, who are exposed to them, develop a wish to die and why others do not. The purpose of the study was to explore whether Purpose in Life as well as other life attitudes are associated with a death wish in older males and females.Methods:The sample comprised 113 older inpatients (from a psychiatric and somatic ward) with a mean age of 74 years. Psychiatric diagnoses were assessed by the SCID-II. Logistic regression analyses estimated the unique contribution of (the interaction between) life attitudes and gender to the wish to die, controlling for sociodemographic variables, depressive disorder, and somatic symptoms.Results:We observed a statistically significant relationship between life attitudes and the wish to die. Purpose in Life and the Purpose in Life*Gender interaction explained significant additional variance in the prediction of the wish to die. Purposelessness in life might therefore be an important correlate of a wish to die, especially in older men, independently from sociodemographic and clinical features.Conclusions:In assessing a wish to die in older adults, life attitudes need to be taken into account, besides the presence of a depressive disorder and/or somatic health. More specifically, finding or maintaining a purpose in later life might be an important feature in the prevention of the wish to die, especially in male persons.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document