Do older people place more emphasis on filial obligation than younger people?
If the breakdown of the generational contract thesis is correct we would expect that younger people would reject filial obligations while older people would expect to receive care. What evidence is there for this type of aged based altruism or self interest? Table 3: Filial obligation scales by age group Although there were some small age differences in attitudes about the responsibility of adults to their older parents these were not the differences that would be predicted by the generational self interest model. The main patterns in Table 3 are: • Older people placed more emphasis than younger people on the importance of their children being around and maintaining contact than on them being obligated to do things for them. These older parents seem to want to be with their children but not to be a burden to them. • The older groups were the least likely to believe that it was the duty of younger family members to provide help to elderly parents. • The older groups were very similar to
