Culture and Family Life: Three Studies on Family and Marriage Relationships across Cultures

This dissertation explores how family and marriage relationships vary according to the culture in which they occur. Based on the individualism/collectivism framework about cultural variations in familial beliefs across countries, I study three topics of family and marriage relationships across cultures. In the first study, I examine how 17 member countries of Organisation of Economic and Co-operation and Development (OECD) differ culturally in older adults' preference for family elder care. I find that older adults from countries with more traditional values that emphasize the importance of a strong parent-child tie are more likely to prefer family care rather than formal care than those from more secular-rational countries with less emphasis on the parent-child tie; the cultural difference gets smaller at a higher level of individual family income. In the second study, I select China as a representative of the collectivist culture, and look into how the collectivist culture and older parents' filial beliefs shape the intergenerational relationship in China. I find that patrilocal and patrilineal traditions are still prevail in China. A highly cohesive intergenerational relationship people idealize in the collectivist culture is more common between older parents and married sons, and least common between older parents and married daughters. In the third study, I compare an individualist society, the U.S., and China, a collectivist society to test whether marriage also isolates people from their informal social network in China as observed in the U.S. I find that marriage does not isolate but integrates people into their informal social network in China, while marriage isolate people in the U.S. The three studies present new evidence on how marriage and family experiences differ due to different cultural beliefs about family, and under what conditions the cultural influences are weakened or reinforced.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph. D.

Level thesis:degree_level

doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Sociology

Department dc:contributor.department

Sociology

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2018

Author dc:creator

• Fang, Fang

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Kiecolt, K. Jill

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Hughes, Michael D.
• Zhu, Haiyan
• Vogt Yuan, Anastasia Sue

• Cross-cultural studies
• Individualist/collectivist culture
• Family and Marriage
• Elder care preference
• Intergenerational Relationship
• Marriage as a greedy institution

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Dc Identifier Other

vt_gsexam:15671

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/83771