Living Arrangements of the Elderly in China and Consequences for Their Emotional Well-Being

Qiang Ren, Peking University
Donald J. Treiman, University of California, Los Angeles

Living arrangements are changing rapidly in China due to the increasing urbanization of the population, the replacement of hutong (courtyard) housing stock with high rise apartments in urban areas, and massive rural-to-urban migration. The result is that it is increasingly unlikely that elderly parents live with their adult children. On the other hand, many urban parents send their children to live with the grandparents, resulting in a new form of multiple generation family, known in China as a “generation-skipping” family. We study the living arrangements and consequences for emotional well-being of the elderly using data from a national probability sample survey conducted in 2010, the Chinese Family Panel Study (14,960 households were included and every family member age 10 and over was interviewed, with information for younger children provided by parents or other adult family members). This sample includes 7,040 people age 60+; this is the group we will study.