Who Should Be Responsible for the Livelihoods of Older Adults? A Comparison of Gender Differences in Public Attitudes Across Four East Asian Countries

Using the East Asia Social Survey (EASS), this paper compares public opinion in four East Asian countries – China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan – regarding old-age livelihoods and care. We estimate multivariate logit models using answers to two questions as the dependent variables: (1) whether responsibility for older adults’ livelihoods lies with the government or families/individuals and (2) who within a family should care for older parents. Because these responsibilities are unevenly distributed between men and women, the analysis is conducted separately by gender and restricted to married respondents. Regarding (1), respondents in China and Japan tend to prefer the government option, whereas in Taiwan the families/individuals option is favoured. Men and women show similar preferences on average, although the individual characteristics underlying these preferences differ markedly by gender. Regarding (2), respondents in all four countries prefer ‘Any child or children, their families’, although in South Korea about one-third of the population favour ‘Eldest son, any son, or their families’. This latter option is more strongly preferred by men than by women in all four countries.