Um pai cuida de dez filhos, mas dez filhos não cuidam de um pai: transferências financeiras entre gerações

• Autor(a) principal: Oliveira, Márcia Botelho de
• Data de Publicação: 2013
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: LOCUS Repositório Institucional da UFV
• Texto Completo: http://locus.ufv.br/handle/123456789/3401
• topic: Solidariedade; Aposentados - Relações com a família; Idosos - Relações com a família; Idosos - Condições econômicas; Idosos - Condições sociais; Gerações; Solidarity; Retirees - Relations with the family; Seniors - Relations with the family; Seniors - Economic conditions; Seniors - Social conditions; Generations; CNPQ::CIENCIAS SOCIAIS APLICADAS::ECONOMIA DOMESTICA

Population ageing presents significant challenges to the society, since it influences consumption, the transfer of goods, the labor market and above all, the family structure. Several studies about the ageing process address the elderly who became dependent as if they represented a burden to their families. However, a significant number of these eldersare able to maintain themselves as well as to assist their families through functional-emotional and material-financial solidarities. Most researches on financial transfers between generations only consider the elderly perspective, and there is a lack of studies which address the families they assist. Thus the objective of this research was to comparatively analyze the perceptions of both retirees and their adult children regarding the role of the elder in the family‟s economy, with respect to financial transfers, as well as to investigate if there are differences in their children‟s behavior regarding such type of financial assistance, considering the gender of the elder who provides it. This research, based on the quantitative-qualitative approach of an exploratory-descriptive design, was carried out in the municipality of Viçosa-MG. Given the objectives aforementioned, a purposive sample of 97 retirees was selected, with a minimum age of 60, who have retired in the last 5 years (from January 2007 to March 2012), who had financially aided at least one adult child and lived in the urban area of Viçosa state of Minas Gerais. This sample was obtained from the cadastral database of the People Management Department of the Federal University of Viçosa. The sample of financially assisted adult children was obtained from information provided by the retirees, and 141 individuals over 18 years old who lived in different Brazilian cities were selected. Two types of semi-structured interviews were carried out: one directed to the retired elder and the other addressed to the financially assisted adult child. For the quantitative data, a descriptive statistical analysis using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version for Windows 17.0 was performed. The qualitative data were treated by speech analysis based on the symbolic interactionism and the social exchange theories. The results showed that for the elderly and their children, the solidarities were classified depending on the characteristics of each one of them. The sustenance by means of providing habitation or expenses with education defined as parents obligations were not considered as assistance. When the subject was reimbursements, the solidarities classified as assistance were those which occurred without expectation of payback. When the solidarity involved some kind of expectation, collection or need to be reimbursed, the retirees classified them as loans. Thus the conclusions are that assistance is the opposite of loan, and obligations are assistances which parents cannot or should not refuse to provide their children with, because they are part of the parenting role. The assistances provided by the retirees were diversified with respect to form, frequency and values, and such definitions were established according to the children‟s needs and the financial conditions of the retirees were not taken into account, given that when the income from retirement was not enough to assist, the retirees would search for alternative sources such as bank loans, sale of property and even going back to work in order to complement the income. The matter of gender of the retirees was coherent with the roles traditionally performed by men and women. Thus the functional-emotional solidarities were mostly offered by the mothers. They also offered more financial assistance than the fathers, and due to their low income and less space in the labor market after the retirement, these elders used bank loans to assist their children. The reimbursement was also influenced by the elder‟s gender: fathers were reimbursed more frequently than mothers. In addition, almost half of the children which were assisted by their respective mothers, and did not reimburse them, stated that if the aid had been provided by the father, they would have had the initiative to reimburse him. The retirees helped their children without demanding payback based on the old-age insurance factor, believing that the assistance would be returned in the future, when they needed it. However, when consulting the children about the intentions of assisting their parents in the future, it was clear that they are not as willing to help as the retirees expected.