Living Arrangement Intentions of Adult Migrant Children toward Their Left-Behind Rural Parents in China

The number of “left-behind” rural elderly has been increasing in China. Although rural elderly support has been examined, the existing studies mainly reveal the current living arrangements of the rural elderly and the actual support that adult migrant children provide for their old parents. The rural migrants’ intended living arrangements for their “left-behind” parents have rarely been investigated. Therefore, the paper aims to investigate the pattern of and explore the underlying decision-making involved in living arrangements that adult migrant children intend to provide for their “left-behind” aging parents in the countryside. It is assumed that living arrangements were the functions of adult migrants’ residency plan for the future, their socioeconomic status and cultural values towards “filial piety”. A questionnaire survey was conducted in Jiangsu province to test the assumptions. One-way ANOVA and Tukey post-hoc tests were used to examine the disparities of the socioeconomic characteristics among the seven options of living arrangements. The results show that most of the rural migrants wanted to change their parents’ current “left-behind” status. They preferred to live together with their elderly parents in rural hometowns. A significant proportion of the respondents consider settling in cities adjacent to their rural hometowns. Rural migrants’ intended living arrangements for their left-behind parents are mediated by their future expectations, caring attitudes and financial circumstances. Institutional barriers for, and the disadvantageous status of, the rural migrants are the main impact factors.