Intergenerational Coresidence in Global Perspective: Dimensions of Change

Introduction

Radical transformations in the family are occurring across the globe. Decades of demographic, economic, and cultural change have brought about great changes in family life and households.

Project Overview

The CORESIDENCE project investigates a crucial, although unanticipated, facet of these transformations: the global rise of intergenerational coresidence (IgC) among adult children and their parents. This shift is occurring in a variety of demographic, economic, and cultural contexts and appears to run counter to expectations that intergenerational coresidence would gradually decline with modernization and cultural change.

Objectives

The primary objective of the CORESIDENCE project is to determine the dimensions of variations in and the rise of intergenerational coresidence around the world. The project will also investigate how these trends are related to demographic, social, economic, and cultural/attitudinal factors.

Methodology

To achieve this goal, I will:

1. Use recent big microdata, which describe family change for more than half a billion people representing more than 120 countries worldwide.
2. Harmonize existing longitudinal data to examine pathways to intergenerational coresidence in six countries representing different norms and forms of intergenerational coresidence:
   • India
   • Japan
   • Mexico
   • Senegal
   • Spain
   • The Netherlands

Significance

This study will be the largest comparative study of the family and of family change ever undertaken. CORESIDENCE will test social theory by analyzing, for the first time, variation in family forms on several geographic scales and time spans to understand the background factors that drive these changes and theorize about the role of the family in the twenty-first century.