Intergenerational relations: older Korean-Americans' experiences

This paper examined intergenerational relations and cohesiveness in the Korean-American family, based on a concept of family solidarity. The data were drawn from face-to-face interviews for 50 older Korean immigrants, telephone interviews for 40 Korean adult children in the Philadelphia area. Most Korean-American elderly were found to live in proximity to a son. There were a high degree of interaction in visiting and telephoning between generations, but less frequency in shared leisure activities and particularly in communication. Financial aid largely flowed from adult children to aged parents, but service assistances were balanced between generations. It is noteworthy that aged parents had lower level of exchanges with their married daughters than their married sons. Results also indicated that Korean-Americans had a consensus about an ideal of dependency in old age. In general, Korean-Americans seemed to have less intergenerational conflicts because of the modest expectations of filial obligation among the older Koreans. The findings did not suggest any evidence of deterioration in cohesion of the Korean-American family, but illustrated a significant ethnic characteristic in intergenerational relationships.