FUNMI TOGONU-BICKERSTETH AND E.O. AKINNAWO
FILIAL RESPONSIBILITY EXPECTATIONS OF NIGERIAN AND INDIAN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS
ABSTRACT. The study examines the likely future seenarios of old age care in Nigerian and Indian societies through examination of the attitudes of the youth towards the elderly, their filial responsibility expectations and their old age expectations. Results suggest that while there are gross similarities in the expressed value placed on old people in the two societies, subtle differences exist between them and that modernization as a soeio-cultural force seems to have affected the two societies differently as regards old age attitudes and receptivity to formalized care o f the old.
Key Words: cross-cultural, developing countries, old age care
INTRODUCTION Much of the cross-cultural writings in gerontology have led to the impression, unintended as it may be, that the most important differences to be highlighted are those between the developed and the developing countries. While such comparisons have contributed to our understanding of the impact of historical, geo-political and socio-economic influences on old age attitudes and old age care, yet the tendency has had the consequence of obscuring the known reality that some very important differences are also to b.e found among each of the major blocks. More particularly, as far as developing countries are concerned, the important contributions gleaned so far by comparing them with developed countries in term of attitudes to the old (Pela 1983, Togonu-Bickersteth 1988a), chronological definition of agedness (Togonu-Bickersteth 1987) and other important parameters dealing with old age, will be advanced further through understanding the variety of differences and similarities which exist among these developing countries. This effort will contribute to the ongoing search in the discipline for cultural uniformities on which systematic theories on social gerontology can be built as well as generate more specific propositions which can be applied to societies at various stages of socio-demographic transition. This study is an attempt at cross-cultural comparison between two societies normally regarded as falling within one of the two blocks. On the macro-level, the Nigerian and Indian societies share a number of socio-economic features. Both are classified as developing third world countries and as countries in the middle of demographic transition. Though rapidly urbanizing, both countries still have a large majority of their populace residing in the relatively poor rural areas. Both countries are also demographically young. In India, the elderly constitute 4% or over 27 million of the population and in Nigeria, 2% or about 10 million. The demographic projections for both countries, however, indicate that the proportion, number and characteristics of
Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology 5:315-332, 1990. © 1990 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
316
FUNMITOGONU-BICKERSTETHANDE.O. AKINNAWO
the old by the next two decades would very likely stretch to the limits the countries' formal and informal ways of caring for the elderly. This study, therefore, attempts to examine the likely future scenarios of caring for the elderly in the two societies through examination of the attitudes of the youth towards the elderly, their filial responsibility expectations and their old age expectations. LITERATURE REVIEW Studies by Western gerontologists of how the non-old view the old have failed to yield consistent findings. There are some who report that the non-old view the old negatively (Collette-Pratt 1976; Mctavish 1971) while others report contrary findings (Salter and Salter 1976; Thomas and Yamamoto 1975). Hicks et al. (1976) argued that the inconsistencies in these findings may be traceable to differences in the measuring devices utilized an observation interpreted by Sunar (1988) as suggesting that attitudes towards the elderly are not easily captured in a positive vs. negative duality. With respect to third world societies, modernization theorists have argued that with increasing urbanization and industrialization, the old will lose their high status and may, therefore, not enjoy the respect that they did traditionally (Cowgill and Holmes 1972). This prediction has yet to be empirically confirmed. Quite to the contrary, reports show that in these societies, the old are still respected (Togonu-Bickersteth 1987; Pillia 1985) and, further, that the perceptions of the old by the young contain an admixture of positive and negative elements (Togonu-Bickersteth and Akinnawo 1988). Further still, Finley's (1982) review of studies linking modernization and status of the aged concluded that the relationship is cyclical rather than linear. Concerning filial obligations to the elderly, it is instructive to note that published reports in Western societies where there is a surfeit of formal welfare provisions for the old, indicate that there is still a persistence of attitudes of filial obligations among adult children (Brody et al. 1983; Wake and Sporakowski 1972). In the developing countries, in the absence of formalized arrangements for the care of the elderly, it is usually the adult children who provide almost all of the care needed by the elderly. Studies conducted in these societies suggest that there is continuity in the norm of filial responsibility. In an opinion survey of the non-old in India it was found that an overwhelming majority of respondents felt the extended family was the best support for the old (Biswas and Tripati 1985). Surveys of university students in Ghana (Caldwell 1965), Nigeria (Caldwell 1977), and Turkey (Sunar 1988) all provide evidence that these students acknowledge their responsibility to extend support to the old. Not only do the young endorse the norm of responsibility to the old, but reports further indicate that adult children in both countries actually provide care for their elderly parents. In a study of caregiving by adult children in Nigeria, it was reported that a sizeable proportion of the adult children's economic resources go towards
FILIALRESPONSIBILITYEXPECTATIONS
317
helping elderly parents (Togonu-Bickersteth 1988) and surveys show that such instrumental supports as monthly remittances to parents are quite common (Adepoju 1982). Similarly, studies in India indicate that 80% of India's elderly continue to be cared for their children (WHO 1986) and that about 90.2% of the rural old and 74.2% of by the urban old live with their children (Biswas and Tripati 1985). However, alongside these positive indicators, there are also other signs which call for caution in assuming that the situation of the old in these societies will remain secure for long. A closer examination of these signs is important so that their implications for the future care of the old can be anticipated. In Nigeria at least, it appears that the usual view of "returns" on educating children is fast becoming a mirage. Given the current level of youth unemployment, parents are having to support their children economically for longer periods than was the case in the past. Further still, the escalating cost of living has led to the fear that the adult working child of the future might not have enough to support his/her family, let alone support aged parents. In fact, the suggestions are often made by observers of the social scene that when children of current middle class parents become working adults, they may not be able to afford for themselves or their children the luxuries to which they are currently accustomed. Thus, they may need to retain a substantial part of their earnings for their own use and have very little left to spend on meeting extended family obligations. These expected changes in economic arrangements may result in situations where economic constraints will limit ability to fulfil filial obligations and where the sheer inability to fulfil obligations might lead to changes in attitudes in order for individuals to maintain cognitive balance. Another observation which raises some concern about future filial obligations attitudes is that family life is becoming more and more child centered. Caldwell's (1982) report reveals that the proportion of time spent on child care rises with the transistion from rural to urban life. If this trend continues, and if, as expected, the present cohort of young adults marry and achieve a high degree of solidarity and cooperation within marriage, they might focus on their children to the exclusion of their senior kin, and, hence the upward flow of wealth to their own parents will likely diminish (Caldwell 1982: 320). Even, for now, research on caregiving by working adult children suggests that meeting filial obligations entails a high financial and emotional cost for the child and often fails to yield the desirable level of care for the parents (Togonu-Bickersteth 1988a). Observations in South-east Asia in general and the Indian subcontinent in particular also yield similar caveats about future filial obligations and attitudes. Goldstein et al. (1983) observed that although household composition in Southeast Asia conforms to the cultural ideal, relations within the households appear not to. Furthermore, they reported that the urban elderly surveyed in Nepal were increasingly of the opinion that today's sons can no longer be depended upon to take good care of their parents. Goldstein's interviews of young adults also revealed that they were hopeful but not too certain that their own children will
318
FUNMITOGONU-BICKERSTETHANDE.O.AKINNAWO
provide support and income for them in old age. Along the same vein, a WHO report on India argues that there would, in all probability, be a decrease in the proportion of the elderly who would be cared for by their own children as a result of increasing urbanization and a concommitant critical shortage of space in the cities (WHO 1986). Biswas' (1985) investigations into the emotional aspect of co-residence (the very heart of the Hindu ideal of family life) report that most of the elderly were outrightly unhappy while the rest, though unhappy, accepted unhappiness as unavoidable and natural. An instance probably typifying the situation of the unhappy but resigned elderly co-residing with a son was encountered during one of our field trips to a suburb of Calcutta. The elderly retired male, about 85 years old, apologised to the research team because the daughter-in-law had not offered the visitors the usual hospitality of tea. When the son and daughter-in-law were not within earshot, the old man noted with sadness in his eyes that even though the house is his, his son and daughter-in-law treat him like they would a squatter, never offering hospitality to his own guests but lavishly entertaining their own. In short, the evolving dynamic societal changes which affect the distribution of economic rewards between generations, the increasing tendency towards nuclearization of family life, the increased urbanization of the society and its effects on all facets of social life, all have potentials for creating structural changes which may make the future adult child, even if willing, unable to care for the old at the same level that his/her parents are caring for his/her grandparents. Therefore, if, as Finley et al. (1988) suggest attitudes of filial obligations are a product of the social and structural conditions in which a person lives, then one can expect that the changing social-economic conditions in which these students are living may affect their filial obligations and expectations. Furthermore, if as CaldweU (1982) argues, schooling at advanced level is first and foremost, a process of westernization, then it can be assumed that university students' responses to questions about aging and old age provide for us a preview of the "westernized" third world person's views on these crucial issues affecting intergenerational support. In understanding the likely future trend in intergenerational support, the use of university students, therefore, has a number of advantages. To start with, based on Inkeles and Smith (1974) and CaldweU's (1982) contention that schooling is the prime modernizer, then university students exposed as they are to modem ideas epitomize the modem man. This modernity (if the assumption is true) should be reflected in their perceptions of the old, their filial responsibility expectations and also in their expected behaviour in old age. Second, since these students are not yet 'caregivers' their filial responsibility expectations can be reasonably assumed to reflect a combination of the beliefs, attitudes and values which they have acquired from interacting with significant others in their own unique family living situations and those acquired from the wider society (including peers, schools and other socializing agents). Further still, since it is widely known that growing up together at around the same
FILIALRESPONSIBILITYEXPECTATIONS
319
historical period tends to generate some similarities in the attitudes, values and world view of individuals (Kimmel 1980), the students' responses would also to some extent reflect this cohort effect and lead to an appreciation of what people of their cohort believe to be their duty towards their elderly parents. This last point becomes even more pertinent in light of the possibility that these respondents and their age mates in the wider populations are likely to be the caregivers when, as projected by demographers, the number of the old will have increased and when the expected increase in life expectancy will ensure that the old live long enough to become "old-old" and, therefore, require care for a greater number of years than previously. Third, in spite of the similarities between Indian and Nigerian societies, there are some obvious socio-cultural differences. For example, for most parts of India, particularly among the Hindi and upper caste families, monogamy is the norm and polygyny the exception. Also, the predominant residence pattern in India is virilocal (the bride moves to or near the parental home of the groom). In contrast to this, in Nigeria, particularly among the Yoruba, polygyny is quite common, and the residence pattern is patrilocal (the bride moves to the location of the husband wherever he may be living). This difference in family set-up and residential pattern and differences in other aspects of social cultural life may engender differences in perceptions of the old and in their filial obligations expectations. Identifying such differences as might exist, will be helpful in appreciating the cross-cultural variations in old age attitudes even among these two seemingly similar "third world developing societies". METHODS Instruments The instrument for the study was a self-administered questionnaire originally designed by the authors and used in a survey of 375 Nigerian university students (Togonu-Bickersteth and Akinnawo 1987). The instrument was taken to the Indian Statistical Institute by the first author*, and after consultations with the Department of the Sociological Research Unit and some other teaching staff, some modifications were made to make the instrument more suitable for use with Indian populations. The questionnaire had four sections. The first two sections elicited sociodemographic information on the students' and their perceptions of "old people" and "young people". Since earlier studies have suggested that perceptions of the old are not easily captured in a positive-negative duality but contain an admixture of negative and positive evaluations (Gordon and Hallaner 1976, 1975; Togonu-Bickersteth 1986b), we wanted a measure which would be sensitive to the fact that an overall evaluation of "old persons" may consist of both negative and positive elements. Furthermore, given the cross-cultural nature of the study, the less intrusive the measure, the more desirable. A scale which is able to capture the duality extant in most evaluations of old people and which appears
320
FUNMITOGONU-BICKERSTETHAND E.O. AKINNAWO
the least intrusive is Osgood's semantic differential scale (Osgood et al. 1957). This was used to measure students' perceptions of the old and young. The scale consists of 20 bi-polar adjectives with values ranging from 1 to 7, the latter representing positive evaluation. The first twelve items on the scale represent the evaluation dimension which Osgood suggests is the most basic component of the scale. The last eight, four each, represent the potency and activity dimensions respectively. We also explored not only how students rate "Old Person", but how they rate "Young Person" as well in order to further appreciate the types of subjective comparisons students make between the young and the old. The section, therefore, contains two scales - one measuring the connotative meanings of "Old Person" and the other measuring the connotative meanings of "Young Person", using the same set of adjectives as stimuli. Section m consists of ten statements to tap students' filial responsibility expectations, i.e. the beliefs about what obligations the student has in meeting the needs of aging parents. Also included in this section are items to test the students willingness to support some forms of formalized arrangements for the care of the old. The last section consists of five items to measure students' expectations during old age.
Hypotheses The study tested the following five hypotheses: 1. Indian students will evaluate the old more positively than Nigerian students. 2. Both Nigerian and Indian students will evaluate the young more positively than the old. 3. Both Nigerian and Indian students will equally endorse the norm of filial responsibility to the old. 4. Students, irrespective of nationality, who perceive the old more positively will more strongly endorse the norms of filial responsibility than students who evaluate the old negatively. 5. For both groups of students there will be a discontinuity in their expected dependency behaviour in old age. These hypotheses are predicated on some assumptions. The justification for the first hypothesis comes out of observations that there is a greater incidence of co-residence with the old among Indian youths than among Nigerian youths and the assumption that the sustained contact will result in positive evaluations. For the second hypothesis, it is presumed that being young themselves, the students will evaluate the young more positively than they would the old. It is also assumed that students will endorse the norms of filial obligations to the old because it is the socially approved thing to do in the two cultures but that students who perceive the old more positively will endorse the norms more
FILIAL RESPONSIBILITY EXPECTATIONS
321
strongly than those who view the old negatively. Lastly, it is assumed that students' expectations of their own old age would be based on their realistic assessments of the prevailing dynamic structural situations extant in their societies and will, therefore, not expect to depend too much on their own children when old.
Sample The Indian sub-sample was made up of 72 of the 106 full time students registered at the Indian Statistical Institute in March, 1987. The rest of the students were not available for survey during the study period. The Nigerian sub-sample of 72 represents the science students in the original sample survey of 375 Nigerian students (Togonu-Bickersteth and Akinnawo 1987). The justification for limiting it to science students was based on the observation that the Indian students surveyed were all in the discipline of statistics - a discipline more related to science than to the Arts. Thus, our final analysis is based on an N of 144 representing equal number of Nigerian and Indian students. The socio-demographic characteristics of the study sample are as follows: The Indian sub-sample was made up of 33 undergraduates and 39 graduate students. All but four were of Hindu religion. Sixty-five were males and the mean age was about 22 years. The mean age of their fathers was about 50 years and of mothers about 46 years. Nineteen students (26%) claimed to have no living grandparents. Of the rest, forty (55.5%) were living in households which contained at least one grandparent. In terms of parents' occipations, nine of the fathers were already retired, thirty-one were civil servants, five were secondary school teachers, five were university teachers and the rest were employed in the informal sector. A majority of the mothers (71%) were full time housewives, four were employed in the formal sector while the rest worked in the informal sector. The Nigerian sub-sample were all undergraduate science students forty-nine of whom were males. The mean age for the sub-sample was 21 years. The family circumstances of the Nigerian students differed from those of their Indian counterparts in three major ways. First, a greater percentage (47%) of the Nigerian students had no living grandparents and secondly, over half of the mothers were employed in the formal sector and thirdly only eight of the Nigerian students (11%) were normally living in households containing at least a grandparent. These differences in family living circumstances may be important in explaining some of the observed differences in responses between the two sub-samples.
322
FUNMI TOGONU-BICKERSTETHAND E.O. AKINNAWO RESULTS
Perceptions of 'Old Person' Table I presents the results o f the evaluative ratings of the phrase "Old Person" by Indian and Nigerian students. Contrary to our first hypothesis, the Nigerian students rated old person more positively on all the three dimensions of the scale. On the evaluation dimension, there were significant differences between the two sub-groups on all but two o f the bi-polar adjectives. The Nigerian students rated the old person significantly higher than the Indian students on nine items whereas the Indian students rated the old more positively on only one item (rich/poor). The ratings on the potency and activity dimensions also followed similar patterns - with Nigerian students reporting higher ratings than Indian students. TABLE I Indian and Nigerian students' ratings on "old person"
Bl-polar adjectives
Indian students (N = 72)
Nigerian students (N = 72)
t-value
P
s
:~
s
4.7 4.5 5.5 4.9 5.1 4.9 3.5 3.2 4.8 4.4 4.6 3.4
1.5 1.6 1.4 1.3 1.3 1.7 1.5 1.1 1.4 1.5 1.5 1.8
5.3 4.8 5.1 6.1 6.4 6.4 5.6 5.7 3.6 5.6 5.8 3.9
2.2 2.3 2.4 1.6 1.2 1.3 2.2 1.8 2.3 1.9 1.9 2.6
2.6 0.8 1.7 5.9 6.9 7.3 9.2 12.4 5.3 5.5 5.5 2.0
FILIAL RESPONSIBILITY EXPECTATIONS OF NIGERIAN AND INDIAN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS
ABSTRACT. The study examines the likely future seenarios of old age care in Nigerian and Indian societies through examination of the attitudes of the youth towards the elderly, their filial responsibility expectations and their old age expectations. Results suggest that while there are gross similarities in the expressed value placed on old people in the two societies, subtle differences exist between them and that modernization as a soeio-cultural force seems to have affected the two societies differently as regards old age attitudes and receptivity to formalized care o f the old.
Key Words: cross-cultural, developing countries, old age care
INTRODUCTION Much of the cross-cultural writings in gerontology have led to the impression, unintended as it may be, that the most important differences to be highlighted are those between the developed and the developing countries. While such comparisons have contributed to our understanding of the impact of historical, geo-political and socio-economic influences on old age attitudes and old age care, yet the tendency has had the consequence of obscuring the known reality that some very important differences are also to b.e found among each of the major blocks. More particularly, as far as developing countries are concerned, the important contributions gleaned so far by comparing them with developed countries in term of attitudes to the old (Pela 1983, Togonu-Bickersteth 1988a), chronological definition of agedness (Togonu-Bickersteth 1987) and other important parameters dealing with old age, will be advanced further through understanding the variety of differences and similarities which exist among these developing countries. This effort will contribute to the ongoing search in the discipline for cultural uniformities on which systematic theories on social gerontology can be built as well as generate more specific propositions which can be applied to societies at various stages of socio-demographic transition. This study is an attempt at cross-cultural comparison between two societies normally regarded as falling within one of the two blocks. On the macro-level, the Nigerian and Indian societies share a number of socio-economic features. Both are classified as developing third world countries and as countries in the middle of demographic transition. Though rapidly urbanizing, both countries still have a large majority of their populace residing in the relatively poor rural areas. Both countries are also demographically young. In India, the elderly constitute 4% or over 27 million of the population and in Nigeria, 2% or about 10 million. The demographic projections for both countries, however, indicate that the proportion, number and characteristics of
Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology 5:315-332, 1990. © 1990 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
316
FUNMITOGONU-BICKERSTETHANDE.O. AKINNAWO
the old by the next two decades would very likely stretch to the limits the countries' formal and informal ways of caring for the elderly. This study, therefore, attempts to examine the likely future scenarios of caring for the elderly in the two societies through examination of the attitudes of the youth towards the elderly, their filial responsibility expectations and their old age expectations. LITERATURE REVIEW Studies by Western gerontologists of how the non-old view the old have failed to yield consistent findings. There are some who report that the non-old view the old negatively (Collette-Pratt 1976; Mctavish 1971) while others report contrary findings (Salter and Salter 1976; Thomas and Yamamoto 1975). Hicks et al. (1976) argued that the inconsistencies in these findings may be traceable to differences in the measuring devices utilized an observation interpreted by Sunar (1988) as suggesting that attitudes towards the elderly are not easily captured in a positive vs. negative duality. With respect to third world societies, modernization theorists have argued that with increasing urbanization and industrialization, the old will lose their high status and may, therefore, not enjoy the respect that they did traditionally (Cowgill and Holmes 1972). This prediction has yet to be empirically confirmed. Quite to the contrary, reports show that in these societies, the old are still respected (Togonu-Bickersteth 1987; Pillia 1985) and, further, that the perceptions of the old by the young contain an admixture of positive and negative elements (Togonu-Bickersteth and Akinnawo 1988). Further still, Finley's (1982) review of studies linking modernization and status of the aged concluded that the relationship is cyclical rather than linear. Concerning filial obligations to the elderly, it is instructive to note that published reports in Western societies where there is a surfeit of formal welfare provisions for the old, indicate that there is still a persistence of attitudes of filial obligations among adult children (Brody et al. 1983; Wake and Sporakowski 1972). In the developing countries, in the absence of formalized arrangements for the care of the elderly, it is usually the adult children who provide almost all of the care needed by the elderly. Studies conducted in these societies suggest that there is continuity in the norm of filial responsibility. In an opinion survey of the non-old in India it was found that an overwhelming majority of respondents felt the extended family was the best support for the old (Biswas and Tripati 1985). Surveys of university students in Ghana (Caldwell 1965), Nigeria (Caldwell 1977), and Turkey (Sunar 1988) all provide evidence that these students acknowledge their responsibility to extend support to the old. Not only do the young endorse the norm of responsibility to the old, but reports further indicate that adult children in both countries actually provide care for their elderly parents. In a study of caregiving by adult children in Nigeria, it was reported that a sizeable proportion of the adult children's economic resources go towards
FILIALRESPONSIBILITYEXPECTATIONS
317
helping elderly parents (Togonu-Bickersteth 1988) and surveys show that such instrumental supports as monthly remittances to parents are quite common (Adepoju 1982). Similarly, studies in India indicate that 80% of India's elderly continue to be cared for their children (WHO 1986) and that about 90.2% of the rural old and 74.2% of by the urban old live with their children (Biswas and Tripati 1985). However, alongside these positive indicators, there are also other signs which call for caution in assuming that the situation of the old in these societies will remain secure for long. A closer examination of these signs is important so that their implications for the future care of the old can be anticipated. In Nigeria at least, it appears that the usual view of "returns" on educating children is fast becoming a mirage. Given the current level of youth unemployment, parents are having to support their children economically for longer periods than was the case in the past. Further still, the escalating cost of living has led to the fear that the adult working child of the future might not have enough to support his/her family, let alone support aged parents. In fact, the suggestions are often made by observers of the social scene that when children of current middle class parents become working adults, they may not be able to afford for themselves or their children the luxuries to which they are currently accustomed. Thus, they may need to retain a substantial part of their earnings for their own use and have very little left to spend on meeting extended family obligations. These expected changes in economic arrangements may result in situations where economic constraints will limit ability to fulfil filial obligations and where the sheer inability to fulfil obligations might lead to changes in attitudes in order for individuals to maintain cognitive balance. Another observation which raises some concern about future filial obligations attitudes is that family life is becoming more and more child centered. Caldwell's (1982) report reveals that the proportion of time spent on child care rises with the transistion from rural to urban life. If this trend continues, and if, as expected, the present cohort of young adults marry and achieve a high degree of solidarity and cooperation within marriage, they might focus on their children to the exclusion of their senior kin, and, hence the upward flow of wealth to their own parents will likely diminish (Caldwell 1982: 320). Even, for now, research on caregiving by working adult children suggests that meeting filial obligations entails a high financial and emotional cost for the child and often fails to yield the desirable level of care for the parents (Togonu-Bickersteth 1988a). Observations in South-east Asia in general and the Indian subcontinent in particular also yield similar caveats about future filial obligations and attitudes. Goldstein et al. (1983) observed that although household composition in Southeast Asia conforms to the cultural ideal, relations within the households appear not to. Furthermore, they reported that the urban elderly surveyed in Nepal were increasingly of the opinion that today's sons can no longer be depended upon to take good care of their parents. Goldstein's interviews of young adults also revealed that they were hopeful but not too certain that their own children will
318
FUNMITOGONU-BICKERSTETHANDE.O.AKINNAWO
provide support and income for them in old age. Along the same vein, a WHO report on India argues that there would, in all probability, be a decrease in the proportion of the elderly who would be cared for by their own children as a result of increasing urbanization and a concommitant critical shortage of space in the cities (WHO 1986). Biswas' (1985) investigations into the emotional aspect of co-residence (the very heart of the Hindu ideal of family life) report that most of the elderly were outrightly unhappy while the rest, though unhappy, accepted unhappiness as unavoidable and natural. An instance probably typifying the situation of the unhappy but resigned elderly co-residing with a son was encountered during one of our field trips to a suburb of Calcutta. The elderly retired male, about 85 years old, apologised to the research team because the daughter-in-law had not offered the visitors the usual hospitality of tea. When the son and daughter-in-law were not within earshot, the old man noted with sadness in his eyes that even though the house is his, his son and daughter-in-law treat him like they would a squatter, never offering hospitality to his own guests but lavishly entertaining their own. In short, the evolving dynamic societal changes which affect the distribution of economic rewards between generations, the increasing tendency towards nuclearization of family life, the increased urbanization of the society and its effects on all facets of social life, all have potentials for creating structural changes which may make the future adult child, even if willing, unable to care for the old at the same level that his/her parents are caring for his/her grandparents. Therefore, if, as Finley et al. (1988) suggest attitudes of filial obligations are a product of the social and structural conditions in which a person lives, then one can expect that the changing social-economic conditions in which these students are living may affect their filial obligations and expectations. Furthermore, if as CaldweU (1982) argues, schooling at advanced level is first and foremost, a process of westernization, then it can be assumed that university students' responses to questions about aging and old age provide for us a preview of the "westernized" third world person's views on these crucial issues affecting intergenerational support. In understanding the likely future trend in intergenerational support, the use of university students, therefore, has a number of advantages. To start with, based on Inkeles and Smith (1974) and CaldweU's (1982) contention that schooling is the prime modernizer, then university students exposed as they are to modem ideas epitomize the modem man. This modernity (if the assumption is true) should be reflected in their perceptions of the old, their filial responsibility expectations and also in their expected behaviour in old age. Second, since these students are not yet 'caregivers' their filial responsibility expectations can be reasonably assumed to reflect a combination of the beliefs, attitudes and values which they have acquired from interacting with significant others in their own unique family living situations and those acquired from the wider society (including peers, schools and other socializing agents). Further still, since it is widely known that growing up together at around the same
FILIALRESPONSIBILITYEXPECTATIONS
319
historical period tends to generate some similarities in the attitudes, values and world view of individuals (Kimmel 1980), the students' responses would also to some extent reflect this cohort effect and lead to an appreciation of what people of their cohort believe to be their duty towards their elderly parents. This last point becomes even more pertinent in light of the possibility that these respondents and their age mates in the wider populations are likely to be the caregivers when, as projected by demographers, the number of the old will have increased and when the expected increase in life expectancy will ensure that the old live long enough to become "old-old" and, therefore, require care for a greater number of years than previously. Third, in spite of the similarities between Indian and Nigerian societies, there are some obvious socio-cultural differences. For example, for most parts of India, particularly among the Hindi and upper caste families, monogamy is the norm and polygyny the exception. Also, the predominant residence pattern in India is virilocal (the bride moves to or near the parental home of the groom). In contrast to this, in Nigeria, particularly among the Yoruba, polygyny is quite common, and the residence pattern is patrilocal (the bride moves to the location of the husband wherever he may be living). This difference in family set-up and residential pattern and differences in other aspects of social cultural life may engender differences in perceptions of the old and in their filial obligations expectations. Identifying such differences as might exist, will be helpful in appreciating the cross-cultural variations in old age attitudes even among these two seemingly similar "third world developing societies". METHODS Instruments The instrument for the study was a self-administered questionnaire originally designed by the authors and used in a survey of 375 Nigerian university students (Togonu-Bickersteth and Akinnawo 1987). The instrument was taken to the Indian Statistical Institute by the first author*, and after consultations with the Department of the Sociological Research Unit and some other teaching staff, some modifications were made to make the instrument more suitable for use with Indian populations. The questionnaire had four sections. The first two sections elicited sociodemographic information on the students' and their perceptions of "old people" and "young people". Since earlier studies have suggested that perceptions of the old are not easily captured in a positive-negative duality but contain an admixture of negative and positive evaluations (Gordon and Hallaner 1976, 1975; Togonu-Bickersteth 1986b), we wanted a measure which would be sensitive to the fact that an overall evaluation of "old persons" may consist of both negative and positive elements. Furthermore, given the cross-cultural nature of the study, the less intrusive the measure, the more desirable. A scale which is able to capture the duality extant in most evaluations of old people and which appears
320
FUNMITOGONU-BICKERSTETHAND E.O. AKINNAWO
the least intrusive is Osgood's semantic differential scale (Osgood et al. 1957). This was used to measure students' perceptions of the old and young. The scale consists of 20 bi-polar adjectives with values ranging from 1 to 7, the latter representing positive evaluation. The first twelve items on the scale represent the evaluation dimension which Osgood suggests is the most basic component of the scale. The last eight, four each, represent the potency and activity dimensions respectively. We also explored not only how students rate "Old Person", but how they rate "Young Person" as well in order to further appreciate the types of subjective comparisons students make between the young and the old. The section, therefore, contains two scales - one measuring the connotative meanings of "Old Person" and the other measuring the connotative meanings of "Young Person", using the same set of adjectives as stimuli. Section m consists of ten statements to tap students' filial responsibility expectations, i.e. the beliefs about what obligations the student has in meeting the needs of aging parents. Also included in this section are items to test the students willingness to support some forms of formalized arrangements for the care of the old. The last section consists of five items to measure students' expectations during old age.
Hypotheses The study tested the following five hypotheses: 1. Indian students will evaluate the old more positively than Nigerian students. 2. Both Nigerian and Indian students will evaluate the young more positively than the old. 3. Both Nigerian and Indian students will equally endorse the norm of filial responsibility to the old. 4. Students, irrespective of nationality, who perceive the old more positively will more strongly endorse the norms of filial responsibility than students who evaluate the old negatively. 5. For both groups of students there will be a discontinuity in their expected dependency behaviour in old age. These hypotheses are predicated on some assumptions. The justification for the first hypothesis comes out of observations that there is a greater incidence of co-residence with the old among Indian youths than among Nigerian youths and the assumption that the sustained contact will result in positive evaluations. For the second hypothesis, it is presumed that being young themselves, the students will evaluate the young more positively than they would the old. It is also assumed that students will endorse the norms of filial obligations to the old because it is the socially approved thing to do in the two cultures but that students who perceive the old more positively will endorse the norms more
FILIAL RESPONSIBILITY EXPECTATIONS
321
strongly than those who view the old negatively. Lastly, it is assumed that students' expectations of their own old age would be based on their realistic assessments of the prevailing dynamic structural situations extant in their societies and will, therefore, not expect to depend too much on their own children when old.
Sample The Indian sub-sample was made up of 72 of the 106 full time students registered at the Indian Statistical Institute in March, 1987. The rest of the students were not available for survey during the study period. The Nigerian sub-sample of 72 represents the science students in the original sample survey of 375 Nigerian students (Togonu-Bickersteth and Akinnawo 1987). The justification for limiting it to science students was based on the observation that the Indian students surveyed were all in the discipline of statistics - a discipline more related to science than to the Arts. Thus, our final analysis is based on an N of 144 representing equal number of Nigerian and Indian students. The socio-demographic characteristics of the study sample are as follows: The Indian sub-sample was made up of 33 undergraduates and 39 graduate students. All but four were of Hindu religion. Sixty-five were males and the mean age was about 22 years. The mean age of their fathers was about 50 years and of mothers about 46 years. Nineteen students (26%) claimed to have no living grandparents. Of the rest, forty (55.5%) were living in households which contained at least one grandparent. In terms of parents' occipations, nine of the fathers were already retired, thirty-one were civil servants, five were secondary school teachers, five were university teachers and the rest were employed in the informal sector. A majority of the mothers (71%) were full time housewives, four were employed in the formal sector while the rest worked in the informal sector. The Nigerian sub-sample were all undergraduate science students forty-nine of whom were males. The mean age for the sub-sample was 21 years. The family circumstances of the Nigerian students differed from those of their Indian counterparts in three major ways. First, a greater percentage (47%) of the Nigerian students had no living grandparents and secondly, over half of the mothers were employed in the formal sector and thirdly only eight of the Nigerian students (11%) were normally living in households containing at least a grandparent. These differences in family living circumstances may be important in explaining some of the observed differences in responses between the two sub-samples.
322
FUNMI TOGONU-BICKERSTETHAND E.O. AKINNAWO RESULTS
Perceptions of 'Old Person' Table I presents the results o f the evaluative ratings of the phrase "Old Person" by Indian and Nigerian students. Contrary to our first hypothesis, the Nigerian students rated old person more positively on all the three dimensions of the scale. On the evaluation dimension, there were significant differences between the two sub-groups on all but two o f the bi-polar adjectives. The Nigerian students rated the old person significantly higher than the Indian students on nine items whereas the Indian students rated the old more positively on only one item (rich/poor). The ratings on the potency and activity dimensions also followed similar patterns - with Nigerian students reporting higher ratings than Indian students. TABLE I Indian and Nigerian students' ratings on "old person"
Bl-polar adjectives
Indian students (N = 72)
Nigerian students (N = 72)
t-value
P
s
:~
s
4.7 4.5 5.5 4.9 5.1 4.9 3.5 3.2 4.8 4.4 4.6 3.4
1.5 1.6 1.4 1.3 1.3 1.7 1.5 1.1 1.4 1.5 1.5 1.8
5.3 4.8 5.1 6.1 6.4 6.4 5.6 5.7 3.6 5.6 5.8 3.9
2.2 2.3 2.4 1.6 1.2 1.3 2.2 1.8 2.3 1.9 1.9 2.6
2.6 0.8 1.7 5.9 6.9 7.3 9.2 12.4 5.3 5.5 5.5 2.0
