Abstract
Research on the impact of living proximity on children’s provision of support in Chinese families has been based on cross-family designs. Recent studies of western families have shown significant within-family differences in intergenerational support. Taking the within-family differences approach this paper uses data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS, 2013) to examine how children’s relative living proximity to older parents compared to that of their siblings influences their support to parents. Results suggest that sibling children at different living distance to parents coordinate/cooperate in elderly support. Children who live relatively farther among siblings provide the highest level of economic support but have the least contact with parents. While living closer to parents among siblings is associated with the most frequency contact with parents and the lowest level of economic support. These patterns differ between rural and urban parent-noncoresident child dyads, and are also moderated by parents’ living arrangement, the gendered division of elderly support, and the reciprocity between parents and children. The effect of non-coresident children’s relative proximity on provision of economic support is less prominent if urban parents live with sons. Rural daughters’ provision of economic support is less affected by their relative living proximity to parents than rural sons’ and differences in intergenerational contact associated with children’s relative living proximity to parents are smaller for all daughters than for sons. Furthermore, differences in children’s provision of economic support associated with their relative living proximity are larger if rural parents have provided grandchild caregiving for children.