Intergenerational Support Exchange within Chinese, British and European Families

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The fellowship enables me to extend my PhD research mainly in four ways.Firstly, I will produce publications from my PhD, which examined the association between the changes in intergenerational support exchange and the health status of older Chinese people. My PhD study found that the proportion of older people receiving informal care from their adult children has declined in recent years, resulting from increasing geographical distance between the two generations. Despite this, the proportion of having bidirectional intergenerational economic support increased over time between 2011 and 2015. Moreover, distant contact has gradually replaced the traditional way of in-person contact, with the popularisation of smart mobile phones and social media apps. New forms of intergenerational support imply new possibilities, and an assumption that a reduction in one type of support may not necessarily indicate a deterioration in intergenerational relations as a whole. Papers based on the research findings will be produced and submitted to well-established academic journals.Secondly, whether intergenerational support exchange has an association with the health status of older people and the strength of such association is a question which may be answered differently depending on the cultural context. I conducted research on this topic based on one wave of data (2014/15) from the CHARLS, ELSA and SHARE as part of my institutional visit to the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, and found that the involvement of grandparents in their grandchildren's care was not strong in England. Moreover, grandparents in southern European countries were less likely to provide grandchild care but do so more intensively than their counterparts in northern European countries and China. Importantly, grandparents in southern European countries were most likely to report having depressive symptoms, followed by China and northern European countries, which were associated with their (intensive) provision of grandchild care. During the fellowship, I plan to complete the research project by including another two waves of data (2010/11 and 2012/13) from the CHARLS, ELSA and SHARE in my analysis. One journal article and one policy brief will be produced from this project.Thirdly, undertaking a research visit to the CPDRC is significantly beneficial for research collaboration and impact. I plan to disseminate my research findings to policy makers and practitioners, academic and non-academic audiences, i.e. the National Ageing Committee, the National Health Commission during my visit to the CPDRC, which help to better understand the exchange of intergenerational support and improve intergenerational ties in China. Intergenerational flows of support as a topic are crucial to everyday family life and of interest to a wide range of audiences, while the lessons to be learnt also have implications for other contexts globally.Finally, the fellowship helps to generate research impact from my PhD. In terms of academic impact, in addition to producing publications, I plan to deliver a seminar on my research within the CPC Seminar series and attend international conferences to present my research findings. For non-academic impact, I aim to engage local stakeholders, such as local groups of Age Concern and carer groups in Southampton and the Hampshire County Council at all stages of the research. Working closely with stakeholders and communicating with them at different stages enable knowledge, which are an asset to the research. I will also make use of the existing networks of my supervisors and mentor and present my research findings to AgeUK, DWP and ONS Centre for Demography & Ageing, raising awareness of the research amongst national policy makers and strengthening the evidence base for the 'Healthy Ageing' Challenge of the Industrial Strategy.