Close to Paternal or Maternal Parents?Marital Power in the Relationship of Adult Children to Aging Parents and In-Laws

• Main Authors: Kuo-Hsun Ma, 馬國勳
• Other Authors: Kuo-Hsien Su
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2007
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/54103660067913121842

碩士 === 臺灣大學 === 社會學研究所 === 95 === The intergenerational relationship between parents and adult children, such as living arrangement, contact frequency, financial support, has been one of the major issues in the sociology of the family. Previous researches on this issue seldom consider the relationship between adult children and parents-in-law. Therefore, this thesis aims to explore how marital power influences the relationship between adult children and aging parents or in-laws based on Taiwanese society. Using a multinomial logit model, the study analyzes the samples of married respondents from the PSFD (Panel Study of Family Dynamics). Two main discoveries are as follows. First, the relationship between adult children and elderly parents or in-laws is indeed affected by different kinds of marriage power, but the results are different between male and female. For female respondents, if the wife’s education or occupational status is higher than the husband’s, the wife may close to her native parents. On the contrary, the result is more complicated for male respondents. Second, for male respondents, the status between parents and in-laws also influence the relationship between husbands and parents or in-laws. To sum up, this thesis demonstrates that in Taiwanese society not only marital power but also ascribed status determines the intergenerational relationship. Furthermore, it may be necessary to consider parents-in-law when we discuss the intergenerational relationship between adult children and parents.