• 한국노년학
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.83-102
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• 2017

Expending on a life course perspective, this study explores the long-term and short-term reciprocity in parent-child relationships in Korean context. Since the reasons for providing filial support are believed to differ by gender, we focused on how a child's gender affects both types of reciprocity. Data were collected from middle-aged sons (N=726) and daughters (N=883) with at least one surviving parent. Logistic regression was then conducted in order to examine the relations between the support a child currently provides to parents and the current or previous support received from the parents. Dependent variables are financial and instrumental support that middle-aged child currently provide to the parents. The financial and instrumental support a child received from the parents within a year are included in the model as an independent variable to assess short-term reciprocity. The level of financial support a child has received during the transition to adulthood process is included in the model as a independent variable to explore long-term reciprocity. Result supports the existence of gender differences in the long-term reciprocity. Daughters provided instrumental support in response to the financial support that they had received from parents during the transition to adulthood process. However, for sons, this tendency was not found. When it comes to financial support, long-term reciprocity was observed neither for the sons nor for the daughters. Both sons and daughters are prone to provide financial support to the aged parents regardless of the level of financial support they had received during the transition to adulthood process. Short-term reciprocity was found both in sons and daughters. when they have been receiving a financial or an instrumental support from the aged parents within a year, they tend to provided instrumental support to the parents. This study shows that the aged parents still fulfill the reciprocal relationship to a certain degree. Secondly, we can conclude that the norm of reciprocity interplays with the norm of filial responsibility in contemporary Korea.