Family Demography and Health in Low and Middle-Income Countries

Intergenerational relations involve the exchange of material, instrumental, and emotional support across the life course. Parents are sources of support to their children but can become recipients of support, especially at older age. Older parents around the world rely most often on their adult children for financial support and care, and adult children increase contact and even become co-resident when parents experience losses, such as widowhood, or illhealth. Amidst dramatic changes in family structure and residential mobility, the extent to which this family lifecycle of intergenerational support is realized is uncertain. Economic uncertainty and the relative absence of public safety nets in poor settings in the global south heighten the policy relevance of addressing these issues. This proposed ESRC-funded series of three cyberseminars will enhance the contribution of family demography to understanding intergenerational relationships and support in low- and middle-income countries. Designed to facilitate the maximum amount of international participation, three interrelated but stand-alone cyberseminars will be conducted in 2012-2014. Using a 'virtual' forum that facilitates knowledge exchange between the north and south, the cyberseminars will bring together academic researchers and students from demography and other allied disciplines, practitioners in family-centered programmes, and people involved in the collection of family data in resource-poor settings. Seminar 1: Building consolidated concepts and methods for the study of intergenerational relationships and support in demographic research Seminar 2: How are family dynamics in low- and middle-income countries affecting intergenerational support and can policies promote positive support in resource-poor settings? Seminar 3: New directions in the demographic study of intergenerational networks and the health and wellbeing of families in low- and middle-income countries Key objectives of the seminars also relate to i) promoting interest and knowledge about contemporary topics in family demography internationally; ii) creating greater awareness of the strength, scope and opportunities for family demography in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Oceania, and iii) fostering interdisciplinary academic networking and collaboration involving demographers from different regions. The cyberseminars will be hosted by the University of Southampton with scientific and technical assistance from the Centre for Research on Ageing, the ESRC Centre for Population Change and the Worldwide University Network (WUN). The co-applicants for this ESRC cyberseminar series are drawn from major academic institutions involved in population studies: Victoria Hosegood (Africa Centre for Health and Population Studies & Southampton), Sara Randall (UCL), Kathryn Yount (Emory), Sureeporn Punpuing (Mahidol), Jacques Alioune (Malawi/Liverpool), Maria Evandrou, Sabu Padmadas, and Jane Falkingham (Southampton). This team has three project partners who will add considerable value to this ESRC cyberseminar series: The University of Southampton, the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP) and the INDEPTH Network. The seminars are also supported by the Population Council.