Challenges to Comparative Research on Intergenerational Transfers

Exchanges made between the elderly and their families are complex processes involving a potentially large number of participants and range of "currency," often subsumed as space, time, or money. Identifying the matrix of providers and recipients associated with each currency, and distinguishing past from current flows and direct from indirect transfers, pose considerable challenges to any survey instrument. This paper proposes an organizational framework for this multidimensionality and then reviews some of the strategies that have been employed by several surveys in East and Southest Asia to measure key elements of intergenerational transfers.