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The Republic of Korea is experiencing demographic, economic, and cultural changes that may create demand for seniors housing in the coming decades. The population is rapidly ageing; pension income is becoming more prevalent; and attitudes are changing about co‐residence. More people are expressing interest in housing that allows for privacy and independence from family members. These changes indicate potential demand for alternatives such as seniors housing. To help specify demand models for seniors housing in South Korea, a survey of urban residents aged 50 and older is presented to identify preferences among those who are planning to live in seniors housing. Results indicate higher income, healthy South Koreans are more likely to plan to live in seniors housing. They are interested in housing that provides personal care, home care, social, and security services, without the financial and physical maintenance burden of a traditional home.

To describe, analyze, and compare two long-term care (LTC) systems for elders in Germany and Israel.

Secondary analyses of data on LTC beneficiaries, structure of service provision and content analyses of policy documents in a comparative perspective based on the Esping-Andersen welfare state typologies.

Descriptive background of demographic attributes in the two countries; discussion of LTC development laws which in Israel focuses on “aging in place” concept, where in-kind services are geared only to community-dwelling frail elders while in Germany it’s for community and institutionalized elders. Analyses of various service types provided their use, resources invested, and benefits incurred for frail elders and their family caregivers.

The advantages and shortcomings of the two systems were analyzed with recommendations for future developments. Such comparisons across nations can inform social policy debates in Germany and Israel as to how to prepare for population aging. The originality of such comparison can shed light on issues for LTC service development in other countries.

Relationships between adult children and their aging parents are challenged when parents need help or care. As a consequence, adult children often experience a transition in their filial role as older parents experience functional losses and the children have to reorganize and restructure their relationship with them (Lang & Schütze, 2002). This filial task competes with other demands of midlife (such as family and career demands). As a consequence, the filial role in midlife may be associated with contradictory experiences in the relationship with one’s parents, typically entailing a high potential for ambivalence.

Purpose: Despite the significance of filial piety in intergenerational relationships and its important influence on parental health and well-being, few studies have explored the personal meaning of filial piety to older parents. This qualitative study aims to address this question.

Design: Responses to an open-ended question of “What makes a filial child in your view?” from a sample of 432 older parents in a rural Chinese county were collected face-to-face and analyzed using content analysis.

Findings: The personal meaning of filial piety varies. Seven broad themes emerged. These include widely persistent traditional filial piety beliefs (Be obedient, Respect, and Maintain frequent contact and show emotional care), filial piety values similar to filial obligations described in Western cultures (Help older parents when in times of need and Be a good citizen and take good care of themselves and their families), and traditional filial piety norms in the absolute form (Take care of every aspect of the parents’ life and Provide financial and material support to parents). Themes were also compared with dimensions of the intergenerational solidarity model.

Originality: Findings reflect the coexistence of traditional and modern filial values in relation to participants’ interpretation of filial piety, indicating that traditional filial piety beliefs are fading even in one of the least developed areas in China. Implications for interventions enhancing offspring’s filial performance are discussed.

Research limitations: Future studies on the understanding of filial piety from the perspective of offspring are warranted to draw a holistic picture of this topic.

The aim of this paper is to argue for the values of familial caring and relationships in addition to the provision of social media technology during the COVID-19 pandemic in Hong Kong.

The discussion of this paper has adopted an inter-disciplinary approach by integrating health care system and psychological analysis, based on cultural philosophical argument through the hermeneutic approach of classical texts and critical analysis.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the dilemma between the public health measures for COVID-19 and sustaining elderly social psychological health through familial connection. From a Confucian perspective, the practice of filial piety (xiao, 孝), which demands taking care of parents, is essential for one’s moral formation, and for one’s becoming a virtuous (ren, 仁) person. The necessity of taking care of elderly parents by adult children is not something that can be explained in terms of consequentialism. Indeed, the rising trend of instrumental rationality seems to weaken rather than strengthen the sense of filial obligation. In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic which tends to separate connections between family members, the author argues that we should emphasize the values of familial caring and relationship because it enhances the elderly’s characteristic of resilience.

This paper shows that while social media technology has mitigated the negative effect of social distancing, such online relationships should never replace the bodily connections between the elderly and their family members from a Confucian perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual framework which deepens our understanding of identity negotiation and formation in a collectivistic Asian context. Drawing from a three-year, multi-method ethnographic research process, the authors explore how contemporary Asian consumers construct, negotiate and enact family identity through meal consumption. The authors particularly focus on the ways in which Asian consumers negotiate values, norms and practices associated with filial piety during new family formation. Building on the influential framework of layered family identity proposed by Epp and Price (2008), the authors seek to develop a framework which enables us to better understand how Asian consumers construct and enact their family identity through mundane consumption.

As most of the identity negotiation in the domestic sphere takes place within the mundanity of everyday life, such as during the routines, rituals and conventions of “ordinary” family meals, the authors adopted an interpretive, hermeneutic and longitudinal ethnographic research approach, which drew from a purposive sample of nine Sri Lankan couples.

The authors present the finding in three vivid narrative exemplars of new family identity negotiation and discuss three processes which informants negotiated the layered family identity. First, Asian families negotiate family identity by re-formulating aspects of their relational identity bundles. Second, re-negotiating facets of individual identity facilitates construction of family identity. Finally, re-configuring aspects of collective family identity, especially in relation to the extended family is important to family identity in this research context. The authors also propose filial piety as a fundamental construct of Asian family identity and highlight the importance of collective layer over individual and relational family identity layers.

The aim of this paper is to develop a conceptual framework which deepens our understanding of identity negotiation and formation in a collectivistic Asian context. Even though exploring Sinhalese, Sri Lankan culture sheds light on understanding identity and consumption in other similar Asian cultures, such as Indian, Chinese and Korean; this paper does not suggest generalisability of findings to similar research contexts. On the contrary, the findings aim to present an in-depth discussion of how identities are challenged, negotiated and re-formulated during new family formation around specific consumption behaviours associated with filial piety in a collectivistic extended family.

As this research explores tightly knit relationships in extended families and how these families negotiate values, norms and practices associated with filial piety, it enables us to understand the complex ways in which Asian families negotiate identity. The proposed framework could be useful to explore how changing social dynamics challenge the traditional sense of family in these collectivistic cultures and how they affect family happiness and well-being. Such insight is useful for public policymakers and social marketers when addressing family dissatisfaction–based social issues in Asia, such as increasing rates of suicide, divorce, child abuse, prostitution and sexually transmitted disease.

Little is known about the complex ways in which Asian family identities are negotiated in contrast to Western theoretical models on this topic. Particularly, we need to understand how fundamental aspects of Asian family identity, such as filial piety, are continuously re-negotiated, manifested and perpetuated during everyday life and how formulations of Asian family identity may be different from its predominantly Western conceptualisations. Therefore, the paper provides an adaptation to the current layered family identity model and proposes filial piety as a fundamental construct driving Asian family identity.

A cursory look at the contemporary social scientific literature shows that the concept of ambivalence has gained prominence in analyses of contemporary societies and identities, and in analyses of interpersonal relationships and interactions. With respect to societal analyses, for example, Bauman has argued that the postmodern habitat “is a territory subjected to rival and contradictory meaning-bestowing claims and hence perpetually ambivalent” (Bauman, 1992, p. 193). “To live with ambivalence,” Varga suggests (Varga, 2001), is the postmodern pronouncement. By using ambivalence as an “interpretive category” rather than as a “research construct” (Lüscher, this volume Chaps 2 and 7), however, sociologists often leave unspecified whether this way of living entails different things for different social actors.

This research aims to explore childhood construction in the Afghan refugee community living in Pakistan. Young Afghan people aged 12–18 who were working on the streets participated in the generation of data for this study in 2019. Ethnographic research approaches with semi-structured in-depth interviews and field observations were used to obtain real insights. Young Afghan refugees have been a constant phenomenon on the streets for decades in the twin cities of Pakistan – Rawalpindi and Islamabad – where this research was conducted and are involved in different street-based casual activities. The findings show that young people face discrimination and exclusion from the mainstream of society due to their undefined citizenship status and poverty. Parents see their children as dependents and as assets for their old age, and children and young people need to work to support their families who live in poverty. In fulfilling their filial responsibilities, young people sacrifice their schooling and have limited opportunities to learn new skills. It is concluded that the government and other international institutions with responsibility for setting policies and creating programs for young Afghan refugees need to understand the dynamics of the families in which the young people live and how these families inculcate them with their generational values.