Levels of Support from Children in Taiwan: Expectations versus Reality, 1965 - 1999

This article reports on an analysis of expectations for living arrangements at older ages among several birth cohorts of Taiwanese women. The study uses national data from a series of fertility and family surveys conducted 1965-1998 and a panel study of the elderly, 1989-1999. The major analytic strategy employed is a cohort analysis in which several birth cohorts are traced across surveys to determine how their expectations (a) varied over time and (b) compared with actual subsequent living arrangements. The authors found that expectations of coresidence expressed in the 1960s and early 1970s were not well matched to actual levels of coresidence observed in the late 1990s. But these expectations were subject to change, and by 1986 the women interviewed appeared to have a realistic sense of what might occur. The comparison of expectations expressed in 1986 to actual coresidence in 1999 shows generally close concordance for the most educated women and for those with some schooling.