Abstract
Singapore, a developed and rapidly aging society, has an underlying tension in terms of the extent of intergenerational support that individuals at different life stages are able or desire to provide and receive. Older individuals have lived in culture with a strong emphasis on filial piety whereas younger adults today face the challenge of expanding their own families and independent households while navigating a competitive labour market in a high-cost economy. Earlier descriptive research confirms that barring monetary support, the majority of older individuals, 57 to 66 percent, neither receive nor provide material, time, and emotional intergenerational support. We use longitudinal data from the nationally representative Panel on Health and Aging of Singaporean Elderly 2009, 2011, 2015, to explain the low levels of non-monetary intergenerational support receipt, conditional on having (grand)children, and in particular study the underlying social determinants and health effects of the provision and receipt of intergenerational support.