Suchergebnisse

This study examines the role that older-aged parents play in the care and support of adult sons and daughters with HIV or AIDS and of AIDS orphans in Thailand within the context of a limited institutional safety net. The analysis draws on both quantitative and qualitative data from survey and open-ended interviews with the parents and from individual case information provided by key informants. The results show that health and welfare benefits provided to persons with HIV or AIDS in Thailand are significant but that this formal safety net still leaves the bulk of care and support, as well as the fostering of orphans, to the family. Reliance on parents is particularly common, a pattern that likely occurs in other developing countries with serious epidemics. Programs to improve caregiving and to provide support to persons affected by the epidemic need to recognize the crucial role of older-aged parents and to incorporate them in their efforts.

Family reconstitution data for fourteen German village populations permit the examination of remarriage during the eighteenth and nineteenth cen turies. The results provide compelling evidence for a secular decline in the tenden cy to remarry. Pronounced age and sex differentials in the likelihood of remar riage were evident: widows were far less likely to remarry than widowers, and the probability of remarriage declined rapidly with age, particularly for women. The probability of remarriage was also inversely associated with the number and age of children. There were, however, no clear differences in either the probability of remarriage or its tendency to decline over time among major occupational groups. The decline in remarriage probabilities was caused in part by declines in adult mortality, which gradually raised the ages of surviving spouses to levels at which remarriage has historically been rather unlikely. However, age-specific marriage probabilities also declined, affecting both men and women and all oc cupational groups, suggesting the presence of a social change of wide scope. Some comments on possible factors contributing to the decline of remarriage are presented. The need for a comprehensive explanation of remarriage trends and differentials remains an important challenge for family historians.