Korean American Elderly Transitions to Independent Living

Jibum Kim, University of Chicago

Though immigration mainly occurs at relatively young ages, later life immigration is increasing. While 7.3% of immigrants were aged 55 and older in 1990, 11.6% of immigrants were that age in 1999. Similarly, 2.8% of immigrants were aged 65 and older in 1990, but 5.0% were that age in 1999 (Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1999, calculated from Table 12, p. 60). This trend may be related to changes in the distribution of countries of origin. For instance, though more than 10% of immigrants from Asia and North America came as parents, less than 3% of immigrants came from Europe came as parents (U.S. Immigration an Naturalization Service, 1999, calculated from Table 8, p. 44). Previous studies on the living arrangements of the elderly show that Asian and Hispanic elderly are more likely to coreside with their children, compared with non-Hispanic Whites [Kamo and Zhou, 1994]. There is considerable variation within Asian and Hispanic elderly subgroups [Burr and Mutchler, 1992; Tanjasiri, Wallace, and Shibata, 1995]. Within these groups, immigrant elderly are more likely to coreside with their children, compared to non-immigrant elderly [Wilmoth, De Jong, and Himes, 1997]. Of the immigrant elderly, those who came here in later life are more likely to coreside with children (Boyd, 1991; Wilmoth, De Jong, and Himes, 1997; Angel, Angel, Lee, and Markides 1999). There are several limitations to previous research on the living arrangements of the immigrant elderly. First, previous studies apparently have focused on whether or not individuals coreside with children. Less attention has been given to the process by which immigrant elderly move from coresidence to independent living. The transition from coresidence to independent living may not only shed light on the intergenerational relationships of immigrant parents and their children, but also provide insight into what hinders or facilitates adaptation of immigrant elderly. Because the elderly take longer to become acculturated, compared to other age groups, policies designed to assist the elderly are likely to have policy implications also for other age groups. Second, the scarcity of representative data of national original groups other than Mexicans limits our attention to the immigrant elderly. For example, the Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) has been the main source of data on the living arrangements for immigrants (Wilmoth, De Jong, Himes, 1997; Kritz, Gurak, Chen, 2000, Wilmoth, 2001). As these researchers have noted, PUMS has insufficient information about children, including only the number of children ever born for females. Nor does it include the role of grandchild caring despite its relevance to immigration or coresidence. A serious implication of relying on census data is that we cannot explain beyond data limitations. In other words, the high coresidence of these groups is attributed to the culture (familism or filial piety) which they brought with them from their home country. Given the importance of the family in the process of immigration and adaptation, our theoretical perspective should incorporate the interconnectedness of the lives of the elderly to their children and grandchildren. Finally, as Kahana and Kahana (2003 p. 239) noted, ¡°the community context impacts the availability of both formal and informal social supports.¡± Although immigrant elderly are more likely to be influenced by the place where they live, these studies do not adequately consider the importance of the place for the living arrangements of immigrant elderly groups. A few studies, including some not specifically focused on immigrant elderly, show that each place brings different opportunities or constraints on the living arrangements. Geographic units of analysis vary from high density states vs. other states for Asian ethnic groups (Burr and Mutchler, 1993), urban vs. rural (Coward, Netzer, and Mullens, 1996), and the Public Use Microdata Areas (Kim and Lauderdale, 2002). In this study, we intend to extend our previous work on the living arrangements of the Korean American elderly, which found that the proportion living independently (living alone or with spouse only) of the Korean American elderly in Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York differs, and conclude that city differences in the likelihood of living independently could be attributed to the community context, the proximity of subsidized housing and a concentration of Korean businesses (Kim and Lauderdale, 2002). The paper offers an alternative explanation of minority elderly living arrangements which may broaden the previous debate of the cultural or income explanation. We infer that the independent living is the adaptation to a given opportunity structure. In this paper, we survey Korean American elderly living in subsidized housing in the Korean ethnic community in Chicago. By examining the effect of age at immigration and duration of grandchild care on the duration of coresident years for the Korean American elderly, we bring a life course perspective to the study of living arrangements of the immigrant elderly. In the winter of 2001, we interviewed 198 Korean American elderly living independently who live in subsidized housing in Chicago. They live at most within 5.4 miles from the center of the Korean ethnic community. Korean elderly women in our sample coresided with their children about 7.3 years before they live independently. Their mean age at immigration is about 60, and they take care of grandchildren for 5.5 years on average. The results from our multivariate linear regression analysis show how age at immigration and years of caring for grandchildren explain the years of coresiding with children. We show that how one¡¯s life transition at a certain age is linked to another¡¯s transition is relevant to years of coresidence with children, controlling for immigration period, education, number of children in Illinois, health status, English proficiency, and marital status. Model 1 shows that there is a statistically negative significant relationship between age at immigration and duration of coresidence years with children. In Model 2, there is a statistically positive significant relationship between years of caring for grandchildren and duration of coresidence years with children. With inclusion of years of caring for grandchildren, the effect of age at immigration on duration of coresidence with children is substantially reduced, but it remains statistically significant. Contrary to previous research of higher likelihood of later immigrants on coresidence at any point, the older the respondents at the time of immigration, the more likely they are to live independently earlier than those not as old at immigration. Another finding is that the longer the parents take care of grandchildren, the longer they live with children. How do we explain the negative relationship between age at immigration and duration of coresidence? Our finding of the relevance of the specific community context (i.e., coexistence of the number of the Korean businesses and units of subsidized housing) on the level of independent living arrangements of Korean American elderly caused us to consider the effect of community context for the decision to live independently. Thus, we examined the reasons given for residential mobility. The question retrospectively asked about the residential moves in the United States. The main reasons given why Korean elderly decided to live independent were discomfort living with children or children-in –law (22.8%), boredom and loneliness (21.3%), and housing availability (11.8%). These motives may suggest that the coresidence reflects a reciprocal relationship between parents and children across the life course. As parents who contributed economic resources to their children are more likely to be cared for by their children in later life (Henretta, Hill, Li, Soldo, and Wolf, 1997), the grandchild caring functions as an exchange with the children. If we consider that age at immigration is related to the resources the elderly can bring to a new country instead of a proxy of acculturation, the later life immigrants are more likely to depend upon the adult children for daily lives. But, coresidence is regarded as the context where resources are exchanged between parents and children, so the limited resources related to later immigration may be a source of conflict between the elderly and their children, and may prompt the elderly to find other sources of support. If we assume that the elderly behave under the given opportunity structure, i.e., the Korean ethnic community with available subsidized housing where we sampled, community offer the choice to move from coresidence to independent living. This study provides two major contributions to the study of immigrant living arrangements. First, if we follow the cultural explanation, the greater the age at the time of immigration, the longer they are likely to coreside with their children because the older they are at the time of immigration will take a longer time to adapt in a new environment. Or elderly who come here at older age are more likely to keep strong cultural preference, compared to that of younger ages. Our findings may suggest that we need better data to allow alternative explanations. Second, it is necessary to incorporate key concepts of a life course perspective in the analysis. Analyzing age at immigration without taking into account contextual information may misrepresent the dynamic nature of the life course.