scholarly journals Intergenerational care in corona times: Practices of care in Swedish families during the pandemic

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Eldén ◽  
Terese Anving ◽  
Linn Alenius Wallin

Objective: This paper analyses intergenerational relationships in Sweden during the corona pandemic, with a special focus on practices of care. The research question is: How is care between generations – between grandparents, adult children and grandchildren – done during pandemic conditions? Background: In Sweden, where an extensive welfare state provides affordable child- and eldercare, the corona strategy of generational separation has still affected family practices of care between generations. In this article we analyse narratives of intergenerational care, taking our point of departure in theories of personal life (Smart 2007), relationality (Mason 2004), and care as sentient activity (Mason 1996). Method: The paper draws on a qualitative interview study with grandparents (n=30), adult children (n=12) and grandchildren (n=12), with data collection taking place shortly before and during the coronavirus pandemic. Results: The study detects the reciprocal and complex ways in which care between generations takes place. When people relate their experiences, strategies for new ways of doing care are at the centre, involving creative ways of negotiating distance and risk, all marked by both worry and relief. Conclusion: The pandemic condition becomes a "filter" affecting and leading to a reformulation of practices of care, from taken-for-granted co-presence narratives, into narratives of relational participation resulting in an overall heightened awareness of the importance and difficulties of intergenerational care practices. The study concludes that a strong welfare state does not translate into complete autonomy or independence; rather, people continue to live "linked lives".

2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (14) ◽  
pp. 1912-1936
Author(s):  
Ju-Ping Lin ◽  
Chin-Chun Yi

In an aging society with a declining birthrate, there are more and more elderly to care for and fewer adult children to provide them care; these adult children, and the state, are forced to weigh the costs of eldercare against the cost of child care. In Taiwan, these dilemmas may be particularly acute, given the persistence of Confucian norms of filial piety and the extended family structures. In this study, we examine the attitudes of Taiwanese people toward the relative responsibilities of both adult children and the welfare state for eldercare and child care. Data were taken from the Taiwan Social Change Survey in 2011. Using latent class analysis to develop a typology of attitudes toward intergenerational care responsibilities, we found four types: (a) Family cares for elders and children, (b) family cares mainly for children, (c) cooperation between family and government, (d) government cares for the elderly. Findings show that an individual’s attitudes toward welfare state policies are significantly related to both self-interest and sociocultural norms as well as intergenerational family interactions. In Taiwan, filial norms and the quality of family interaction significantly influence attitudes toward the division of intergenerational care responsibilities.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 345-346
Author(s):  
Jeung Hyun Kim

Abstract The current study explores the association between grandparent caregiving by Chinese American elders and their perceived receipt of filial support from their adult children, called filial piety (xiao). Many studies find a correlation between grandparent caregiving and filial behaviors from their adult children, which is notably higher among minority families, especially among Asians than among white families, stimulated by the norm of reciprocity, familism, and extended kinship. Drawing from the theory of intergenerational relationships, social exchange theory, and the role theory, this study questions whether a more active engagement in grandparenting renders higher levels of filial piety returns from adult children. It uses the PINE data, a survey on the wellbeing of Chinese American elders in Chicago. The results show that more hours of grandparent caregiving relate to higher returns of filial piety perceived by older parents. Correspondingly, though with a marginal significance, more pressures to take care of a grandchild from adult children reduce the elders’ perception of filial piety receipt. No interaction effect is found between the grandparenting hours and the pressure from adult children. Additionally, Chinese American elders possessing higher levels of education, mastery, and longer stays in the US perceive lower levels of filial piety receipt from adult children. Discussion will focus on how grandparent caregiving can be mutually beneficial and strengthen intergenerational relationships among Chinese American families.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 3-25
Author(s):  
Anatoli Beifert ◽  
Gunnar Prause ◽  
Yury Shcherbanin

Abstract Land-based Trans-Eurasian transport corridors, their current development and perspectives have been high on the political agenda in the last two decades not only in Europe and China but also in the transit countries such as russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. A number of conceptual initiatives are already being implemented. The Belt and road or the one Belt, one road (oBor) initiative on the Chinese side and the rail Baltica project from the European perspective have gained special attention. Big-scale infrastructural projects are also being implemented by transit countries, e.g., the construction of a motorway from China to Europe—from Kazakhstan via russia to Belarus—to facilitate the land-based shortcut for cargo transport within the Eurasian transport corridor. This article investigates the general framework conditions of infrastructural investments into projects related to Eurasian logistics and discusses strategic areas of intersection between the European activities and the new Silk Way. in the framework of the oBor initiative, this article also addresses the interaction of the Chinese–Kazakh–russian–Belarusian –polish railway transport, with a special focus on Belarusian–polish cross-border issues. The authors have participated in several projects focusing on transport corridors and discuss the research question of how different Eurasian land-based transport corridors can be integrated and which strategic role can the rail Baltica project play in the context of the new Silk route. The research is based on surveys, expert interviews, secondary data research and case studies.


Author(s):  
Piet Ankiewicz

Technology education is globally still relatively new, and it lacks a substantive research base, a well-established classroom pedagogy and a scientifically founded, subject-based philosophical framework that may serve as a directive for related aspects. Technology is also a developing school subject with no equivalent academic discipline upon which curriculum development and classroom pedagogy may rely. The Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) for Technology in the Senior Phase was officially implemented in 2014. However, responses to the intended or specified curriculum, either positive or negative, are often elicited from various stakeholders and interest groups. In the absence of philosophical-founded criteria for the development and evaluation of an intended technology curriculum, it is often unclear whether such responses are justified. Subsequently it is impossible to make fair judgments about such subject curricula. Based on Mitcham’s framework, the literature reports on a philosophical framework that is directive for technology classroom pedagogy, technology teacher education and Science, Technology and Society Studies (STS). The purpose of the article is to investigate how a scientifically founded, philosophical framework of technology can be directive for the development and evaluation of the intended technology curricula. The following research question served as point of departure for the theoretical reflection: Based on the four modes of the manifestation of technology – namely as object, knowledge, activity, and volition – which scientifically founded criteria can be deduced to be applied as part of the development and evaluation of intended technology curricula? In answering the research question it is important to point out that curriculum developers and evaluators should ensure that they take note of the philosophical framework for technology which guides subject-curriculum development and evaluation. A fourfold set of applicable criteria, based on the four manifestations of technology, have been deduced accordingly.


2018 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 164-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia A. Thomas ◽  
Amy C. Lodge ◽  
Corinne Reczek

Physical activity is central to health. Parents tend to have lower levels of physical activity than the childless, however, little is known about how adult child–parent relationship quality matters for mothers’ and fathers’ physical activity trajectories. Nationally representative panel data from the Americans’ Changing Lives survey (1986–2012) are used to analyze multilevel-ordered logistic regression models. Greater social support from adult children is associated with more frequent active exercise, and higher strain with adult children is related to more frequent active exercise and walking. A significant gender interaction suggests that strain with adult children is related to greater exercise among men more so than women, but this interaction is attenuated after adjusting for cigarette smoking, another gendered way of coping with stress. This study contributes to a more nuanced understanding of how different dimensions of intergenerational relationships shape health behaviors across the life course.


Author(s):  
Philip Manow

The first chapter motivates the book’s central research question: how did the German variant of capitalism emerge, and what today is its central functioning logic? The chapter argues that past and recent accounts of Germany’s economic performance and economic policy have failed to fully explain how long-term stable economic coordination could have evolved in as large a country as Germany, and that this has also translated into an often biased view of Germany’s current economic policies. The chapter sketches the basic argument of the book—namely that the German welfare state was the prime means of economic coordination for unions and employers, labor and capital—and situates it in two relevant literatures: the Varieties of Capitalism literature on the one hand and the Comparative Welfare State literature on the other. The chapter also presents an overview of the book.


2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 218-246 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Børsen ◽  

Both postphenomenology and critical constructivism are central paradigms used as philosophies and theoretical resources at the Master’s program in Techno-Anthropology at Aalborg University. In the fall of 2018 a didactical experiment was set up as Techno-Anthropology Master’s students were introduced to postphenomenology and critical constructivism and asked to compare these two theoretical positions. This comparative assignment and following class discussions between students, a guest lecturer and teachers is the point of departure for this paper. First, the paper introduces Techno-Anthropology with a special focus on the roles of postphenomenology and critical constructivism in the Master’s program. The next part of the paper zooms in on how these two philosophical positions were presented to the students. The third part analyzes students’ comparisons of postphenomenology and critical constructivism. On that basis, the author identifies similarities and differences between the two positions and discusses how the two positions can complement each other in a unified Techno-Anthropological research strategy.


Author(s):  
Virpi Timonen

It is important that patterns of contact and transfers of time and material resources between family generations continue to receive attention, yet it is also essential to broaden the enquiry to examine the evolving nature and meanings of these transfers, and changes in intergenerational relationships more generally. The demographic and welfare state contexts of grandparenting have retained their central importance, and evince some intriguing developments, not in the least the postponement in the age of becoming a grandparent in some contexts. Grandparenting in countries that are undergoing rapid economic and social development is flagged as an area of growing interest. Gender and intersectionalities are brought into particularly close focus, through investigations into the gendered divisions of labour among grandmothers and grandfathers. The growing importance of transnational grandparenting is emphasised. Grandparental roles, agency and influence are highlighted as topics that deserve more attention.


2016 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 267-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liat Ayalon

The study examined the accounts of older adults and their adult children concerning the transition to the continuing care retirement community (CCRC) and the adjustment to it, using a life course perspective. Up to three waves of interviews, consisting of a total of 187 interviews with older adults and their adult children, were conducted between 6 months and 6 years from the transition to the CCRC. Thematic analysis was employed using comparisons across groups of interviewees (older adults and adult children) and waves of interviews (up to three waves) to identify core categories of meaning. Time perception was an organizing principle across interviews. Both older adults and their adult children perceived themselves as moving forward and backward in time following the transition to the CCRC and future expectations for deterioration. The study emphasizes the linked-lives of older adults and their adult children.


2020 ◽  
pp. 152747642095358
Author(s):  
Zhongxuan Lin

With a special focus on the commercialization of creative videos, this article explores the research question of how digital platforms’ affordances simultaneously allow and constrain video producers’ commercialization activities in the platform era. This study adopts a case study design that focuses on the Chinese digital video producer Zheng Yun, founder of Zheng Yun Studio, using ethnographic participant observations and in-depth interviews. It explains how creative producers such as Zheng Yun struggle to survive in the context of intensified platformization and how they benefit from the digital platforms by employing various commercialization mechanisms, including the Revenue Sharing Program (RSP), Embedded Product Placement (EPP), Franchise Chains, Agent-commission, and Crowd-funding. This research also demonstrates the asymmetrical power relationships between platforms and video producers, which prompt us to rethink the political nature of platforms and the diversified nature of platformization in the digital platform age.


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