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In this introduction to our volume on growing up in Asian societies, we define the claim of this collection, explain the approach, and take stock of what it has been possible to achieve empirically and conceptually for the further global study of childhood and youth. Our aim was to understand and present the young generation in its intergenerational relations. The 16 studies, divided into four regional sections, show a broad spectrum of very different conditions in which this young generation lives, of expectations with which they are confronted, and of strategies for action that are open to them. And they show the overriding importance of the commitments and solidarities between different age groups across societies. We propose – in the sense of a theoretical conclusion – three concepts that should be central to the study of childhood and youth experiences: (inter)generational order, existential inequality, and voice. Whereby, the latter concept also has to take into account walls of silence. The three concepts have extended prior work of childhood and youth studies with new analytical power and empirical relevance, based on this most comprehensive collection to date on growing up in Asian societies.

Purpose – This study aims to determine the roles of technology through digital democracy in younger generation’s political education.

Design/Methodology/Approach – Research data were obtained through observation, interviews on students in Universitas Malikussaleh, and also retrieved from some literature studies that are relevant to the above research problems. Data are then analyzed by using qualitative descriptive analysis technique.

Findings – The research results show that the role of political activity using digital channels as a form of political participation gives positive impacts to the political participation of young generation.

Research Limitations/Implications – This research limits the scope of attention only on young generation’s participation in political activities.

Practical Implications – The necessity of the younger generation is to be given wider opportunities and responsibilities in the public sphere as well as involving as a member of a political party, or other social and political organization.

Originality/Value – Therefore, in order to push towards political democratization, political education agents must be able to utilize social networking media on the internet to convey ideas, actions, and other political activities for the development of political education.

People with a dual care task at home, taking care of a younger and an older generation family member, are often called the sandwich generation (SG). They are more often women than men, at high risk of burnout or withdrawal from the labour market. This book provides international comparisons and offers tools for working sandwich generation (WSG) women and their supervisors for managing challenging situations in working life. The book is multidisciplinary and combines theories with qualitative and quantitative empirical research, practical tools and case studies. This chapter introduces the themes and relevant concepts of the book and presents its structure.

The production of the ‘good life’ or the ‘less bad-life’ (Berlant, 2007, 2011), especially among generations of the Marcos dictatorship and the Epifanio de los Santos Avenue revolutions (henceforth, EDSA revolutions) in the Philippines, is animated by the ‘mobility imperative’ (Farrugia, 2016). The mobility imperative includes processes that encourage or demand mobility (Farrugia, 2016) for individuals and institutions. It figures in various ‘systems of practice’ (Levitt, 1998, 2001) among families in migrant-sending communities, government and corporations that magnify how migration is the ticket to better life (McKay, 2012) or its glorification as a heroic act (de los Reyes, 2013, 2014). Among the generations of the Martial Law and the EDSA revolutions, therefore, the ‘good life’ is hinged upon departure as professionals (e.g. nurses and engineers), workers in elementary occupations (e.g. construction and domestic workers) or mail-order brides or pen pals. Put simply, the good life in these generations is a function of remittances.

This chapter examines how the contemporary generation of young people construct the ‘good life’ in differential and new terms (de los Reyes, 2023; McKay & Brady, 2005) from previous generations. Using interviews and vision boards of left-behind children (15–18 years old), it argues that left-behind children critically appraise the ‘mobility imperative’. The chapter shows that there is a growing imagination of alternatives to the migration-induced good life among left-behind children, and therefore, they gradually refuse the ‘mobility imperative’. For them, the aspired good life consists of potentially being employees or entrepreneurs in their own villages and living a life with their own families (de los Reyes, 2019, 2020).

Drawing on in-depth interviews with 34 women and men of the working sandwich generation (WSG) in Flanders, this chapter presents a taxonomy of nine coping strategies that the WSG uses to balance intergenerational care with a job: an acceptance strategy, a boundary management strategy, a help-seeking strategy, a planning strategy, a governance strategy, a self-care strategy, a time focus strategy, a values strategy and a super-sandwich strategy. Individuals of the WSG do not use just one strategy, but combine different strategies simultaneously or consecutively. Moreover, different strategies are also strongly linked to each other so that there is a certain degree of ‘overlap’.

The chapter discusses the assumptions and main conclusions from the international comparative research, the key purpose of which was to identify and characterise the representatives of the sandwich generation (SG) in selected European countries in relation to professional activity. The research covered five countries, and when choosing them we took into account the diversity of welfare state models. The research was carried out in the autumn of 2020 with the use of a proprietary questionnaire on representative samples of Internet users aged 45–65 from Belgium (only Flanders), Finland, Italy, Poland and Great Britain. The conducted analyses confirmed the diversification of the situation of SG representatives in specific countries.

When ownership starts getting dispersed among several individuals, families, branches, and generations, a need for organizing communications and decision-making usually arises to ensure functional relationships within the family. The need for a shared vision and mutually agreed ways of handling the shared ownership emerges, and a process for developing a family governance structure is often initiated. Family governance, hence, appears to be a central topic in family business research, but we still lack a more profound and specific understanding of how the owner family uses different family governance mechanisms to manage specific situations with possible conflicting goals, interests, and opinions, or just to develop the shared ownership further for or together with the next generation. The aim of this chapter is to give an overview and highlight different processes developed by the family within owner families with dispersed ownership to identify and align governance goals. This overview intends to broaden the understanding of what the role of family governance, as a family internal mechanism, can be in owner families with dispersed ownership among several family members.

This contribution explores intergenerational relations and negotiations in Viet-German families. Due to family members' diverging socialization experiences in Vietnam and Germany as well as social ties in both societies, we assume that different ideas of intergenerational relations and mutual obligations may be found in Viet-German families. We distinguish between interdependent and independent intergenerational patterns of solidarity. Based on interviews with young adults – the descendants of Vietnamese migrants – four thematic areas are identified, in and through the shaping of which intergenerational relations are continuously negotiated at the face of migration-related challenges. These are (1) a childhood for the future, (2) reciprocal support, (3) individualization of family members and intimization of the family and (4) boundaries against kinship and the Vietnamese community. Our analysis reveals the emergence of a new, hybrid pattern of intergenerational solidarity, for which we suggest the term “individualized interdependence.” The role of young adults in the elaboration of this new family order stands out.