In the United States, older people rarely live with their adult children. But in many other cultures children are expected to ca

In the United States, older people rarely live with their adult children. But in many other cultures children are expected to care for their aged parents. In some parts of Italy, the percentage of adult children who reside with their parents reaches 65 to 70 percent. In Thailand, too, children are expected to care for their elderly parents; few Thai elderly live alone.
   What explains these differences in living arrangements across cultures? Modernization theory linked the extended family household to low levels of economic development. In traditional ’societies, the elderly live with their children in large extended family units for economic reasons. But with modernization, children move to urban areas, leaving old people behind in isolated rural areas. Yet modernization theory cannot explain why extended family households were never common in the United States or England, or why families in Italy, which is fully modernized, maintain a strong tradition of intergenerational living. Clearly, economic development alone cannot explain preferred living arrangements.
   Another theory associated intergenerational living arrangements with inheritance patterns. In some cultures, the stem family pattern of inheritance predominates. Under this system, parents live with a married child, usually the oldest son, who then inherits their property when they die. The stem family system was once common in Japan. but change; in inheritance laws, as well as broader social changes brought about by Industrialization and urbanization, have undermined the tradition. In 1960 about 80 percent of Japanese over 75 lived with their children; by 1990 only 60 percent did—a figure that is still high by U. S. standards, but which has been declining steadily. In Korea, too, traditional living arrangements are eroding: the percentage of aged Koreans who live with a son declined from 77 percent in 1984 to 50 percent just 10 years later.