More than 1.3 million Korean Americans live in the United States, the majority of them foreign-born immigrants and their children, the so-called 1.5 and second generations. While many sons and ...daughters of Korean immigrants outwardly conform to the stereotyped image of the upwardly mobile, highly educated super-achiever, the realities and challenges that the children of Korean immigrants face in their adult lives as their immigrant parents grow older and confront health issues that are far more complex. InCaring Across Generations, Grace J. Yoo and Barbara W. Kim explore how earlier experiences helping immigrant parents navigate American society have prepared Korean American children for negotiating and redefining the traditional gender norms, close familial relationships, and cultural practices that their parents expect them to adhere to as they reach adulthood. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 137 second and 1.5 generation Korean Americans, Yoo and Kim explore issues such as their childhood experiences, their interpreted cultural traditions and values in regards to care and respect for the elderly, their attitudes and values regarding care for aging parents, their observations of parents facing retirement and life changes, and their experiences with providing care when parents face illness or the prospects of dying. A unique study at the intersection of immigration and aging,Caring Across Generationsprovides a new look at the linked lives of immigrants and their families, and the struggles and triumphs that they face over many generations.
This study investigated intergenerational transfers by the sandwich generation towards adult children and elderly parents. Using data on generational transmissions in Finland from a 2012 survey, we ...employed family fixed effect regressions and investigated whether the Finnish baby boomers (age 62-67 years) provided more support towards their adult children than towards their elderly parents. Four forms of intergenerational transfers were considered: financial aid, practical help, care, and emotional closeness. Emotional closeness, care, and financial aid were directed more often towards adult children than elderly parents. In contrast, practical help was directed more often towards elderly parents than adult children. The results regarding the direction of investments were similar among women and men. However, women were emotionally closer to their adult children than were men and provided more care to both elderly parents and adult children, while men gave more practical help to children than did women. Finally, the downward transfers were directed more often towards daughters than to sons by women (emotional closeness and childcare) and men (practical help and childcare). Women directed upward investment more often towards mothers than fathers (emotional closeness and care). The results are discussed with reference to reproductive value and intergenerational stake hypotheses.
This study investigated intergenerational transfers by the sandwich generation towards adult children and elderly parents. Using data on generational transmissions in Finland from a 2012 survey, we ...employed family fixed effect regressions and investigated whether the Finnish baby boomers (age 62-67 years) provided more support towards their adult children than towards their elderly parents. Four forms of intergenerational transfers were considered: financial aid, practical help, care, and emotional closeness. Emotional closeness, care, and financial aid were directed more often towards adult children than elderly parents. In contrast, practical help was directed more often towards elderly parents than adult children. The results regarding the direction of investments were similar among women and men. However, women were emotionally closer to their adult children than were men and provided more care to both elderly parents and adult children, while men gave more practical help to children than did women. Finally, the downward transfers were directed more often towards daughters than to sons by women (emotional closeness and childcare) and men (practical help and childcare). Women directed upward investment more often towards mothers than fathers (emotional closeness and care). The results are discussed with reference to reproductive value and intergenerational stake hypotheses.
Women more often than men take care of their ageing relatives together with their own children or grandchildren. These Sandwich Generation (SG) women constitute an expanding vulnerable group on the ...labour market at higher risk of discrimination, work-family conflict, burnout, and withdrawal from the labour market and unemployment. Working Women in the Sandwich Generation helps present a clearer view of how to support this group both now and in the future. Beginning with a presentation of quantitative and qualitative research that sheds light on the SG situation in Poland, Finland and Flanders, this volume provides insights into various components from the SG life domains such as personal development and learning, connection to the labour market, coping strategies, resources, and energy drainers. In the second part the book provides tools for SG women, their supervisors, educators, and coaches to help manage challenging situations and improving wellbeing at work. Working Women in the Sandwich Generation then introduces the results of international comparative research the purpose of which was to identify and characterise the SG in five European countries before concluding with recommendations for supervisors and policy makers in supporting SG women.
The 1950s and 1960s were years of shifting values and social changes that did not sit well with many citizens of Richmond, Virginia, and in particular with one conservative family, a staunchly ...southern mother and father and their two daughters. A powerful evocation of time and place, this memoir—a gifted poet's first book of prose—is the story of an inquisitive and sensitive young woman's coming of age and a deeply moving recounting of her reconciliation later in life with the family she left behind. Returning us to a Cold War world marked by divisions of race, gender, wealth, and class, The Prodigal Daughter is an exploration of difference, the powerful wedge that separates individuals within a social milieu and within a family. Echoing the biblical Prodigal Son, Margaret Gibson's memoir is less concerned with the years of excess away from home than with the seeds of division sown in this family's early years. Hers is the story of a mother proud to be a Lady, a Southerner, and a Christian; of two daughters trapped by their mother's power; and of their father's breakdown under social and family expectations. Slow to rebel, young Margaret finally flees the world of manners and custom—which she deems poor substitutes for right thought and right action in the face of the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War—and abandons her fundamentalist upbringing. In a defiant gesture that proves prophetic, she once signed a postcard home "The Prodigal." After years of being the distant, absent daughter, she finds herself returning home to meet the needs of her stroke-crippled younger sister and her incapacitated parents. In this tale of homecoming and forgiveness, death and dying, Gibson recounts how she overcame her long indifference to a sister she had thought different from herself, recognizing the strengths of the bonds that both hold us and set us free. Interweaving astute social observations on social pressures, race relations, sibling rivalry, adolescent angst, and more, The Prodigal Daughter is a startlingly honest portrayal of one family in one southern city and the story of all too many families across America.
“I decide that from now on we should listen to him. His lip may be deflated and his left side paralyzed, but he knows. And he has made terrible mistakes. But he knows. He knows. We are lucky ...that way.” Lucky That Way , a nuanced, richly engaging memoir, chronicles the joys and tribulations of a daughter who rediscovers her father as he nears the end of his life. Ernie Gerhardt, an artist and teacher, is largely estranged from his five children, but when he suffers a debilitating stroke, his daughter Pamela must fly to Las Vegas to tend to him. When she arrives to find Ernie newly and shockingly fragile, she is hit by an unexpected wave of tenderness. As she watches over him in intensive care, she recalls turning points in her family history—the early death of her mother and her father’s turn to heavy drinking--and reflects on the idiosyncrasies that make an imperfect and unique family, on what it means to become old, on what happens when parents are no longer the caregivers but the cared-for, and on how a family copes with their responsibility to the elderly. Written in a crisp, engaging style, the story is less about the drudgery of finding the right mix of medicines, at-home caregivers, and rehabilitation centers and more about the emotional ramifications of caring for the sick under the weight of sometimes flawed attachments. People make mistakes, grow old, get sick, and pass on from this world. Lucky That Way examines the irritations and comforts of contemporary family bonds. Gerhardt sifts through the complicated, multi-layered relationships for both wry comedy and high drama and records a string of triumphs and mishaps as Ernie and his five adult children struggle to manage his life and find meaning before their time runs out. The emerging theme of imperfect humans struggling with life's great mysteries will strike a chord of recognition with the tens of thousands of Baby-Boomers and Gen-Xers who are currently facing similar circumstances with their elderly loved ones. Pamela Gerhardt’s heartfelt story about a family coming to terms with their aging father’s illness and imminent death takes readers on an emotional roller coaster that highlights love, loss, humor, and sadness.
With an increasing number of elders moving into nursing homes, the shift from family to nursing home care calls for an exploration of caregiving decision-making in urban China. This study examines ...how a rapidly growing aging population, the one-child policy, and economic reform in urban China pose unprecedented challenges to the country's ingrained tradition of family caregiving. It presents interviews of matched elders and their children from a government-sponsored nursing home in Shanghai and analyzes the decision-making process of institutionalization. This book offers fresh insight into the evolving culture and arrangements of caregiving in contemporary Chinese society, illuminating the diverse needs for long-term care of Chinese elders-the world's largest aging population-in the coming decades.
