Department of Sociology and Criminology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park.
Department of Sociology, The University of Western Ontario, London, Canada.
J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci. 2019 Oct 4;74(8):1453-1462. doi: 10.1093/geronb/gby051.
China's recent demographic and social changes might undermine the sustainability of its family-oriented system for elder care. We investigate kin availability among adults aged 45+ in contemporary China, with an emphasis on child gender.
Using nationally representative survey data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (2011), we examine the prevalence and correlates of lacking different kin types and combinations, and we test associations between kin availability and received economic support.
Kinlessness is low in China (less than 2% lack a spouse/partner and children), but kin availability is patterned by gender, age group, and sociodemographic characteristics. More than twice as many older adults have no spouse/partner and no daughter (3.2%) as those who have no spouse/partner and no son (1.4%). Adults without close kin are disadvantaged across health, wealth, and economic support. In contrast to traditional expectations, we find that those with only daughters are more similar to those with mixed sex children, whereas those with only sons are more similar to those without children in receipt of economic support.
Access to kin forms the basis of an emergent system of stratification in China, which will be amplified as cohorts with only one child age into older adulthood.
中国最近的人口和社会变化可能会破坏其以家庭为导向的老年人护理体系的可持续性。我们研究了当代中国 45 岁以上成年人的亲属可用性，重点关注子女性别。
利用中国健康与退休纵向研究（2011 年）的全国代表性调查数据，我们考察了缺乏不同亲属类型和组合的流行率和相关因素，并检验了亲属可用性与所获得的经济支持之间的关联。
中国的无亲属现象较低（不到 2%的人没有配偶/伴侣和子女），但亲属可用性存在性别、年龄组和社会人口特征的模式。没有配偶/伴侣和没有女儿的老年人（3.2%）比没有配偶/伴侣和没有儿子的老年人（1.4%）多两倍以上。没有近亲的成年人在健康、财富和经济支持方面处于不利地位。与传统预期相反，我们发现只有女儿的人与有混合性别子女的人更为相似，而只有儿子的人与没有子女的人在获得经济支持方面更为相似。
与亲属的联系构成了中国新兴分层体系的基础，随着只有一个孩子的一代人进入老年，这种体系将被放大。
