Do Urban Children Give Time to Their Elderly Parents?

Manasi R. Bawdekar, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)

Although intergenerational time transfers are not as substantial as monetary transfers in practice, little is known about their role and importance particularly to and from elderly parents in India. This paper attempts to study empirically the nature and pattern of time transfers between co-residing and non-coresiding parents and their adult children . Time transfers to and from elderly parents are universal irrespective of highly urbanized set up and co-residency status. However, sons were found to provide more time to those parents whom they perceived to be a strong source of support. Two stage least square regression highlighted factors like age, presence of sibling in household, headship status, and monetary support received from and made to parents to be significantly associated with time given to parents. No evidence of substitution between time and money between the two generations was found. Key words: Time transfers, co-residence, non-coresidence , adult children, elderly parents