Family Demography and Health in Low- and Middle-income Countries: A Cyberseminar Series Exploring Family Change and Intergenerational Relationships

Intergenerational relations involve the exchange of material, instrumental, and emotional support across the life course. Parents are sources of support to their children but can become recipients of support, especially at older age. Older parents around the world rely most often on their adult children for financial support and care, and adult children increase contact and even become co-resident when parents experience losses, such as widowhood, or illhealth. Amidst dramatic changes in family structure and residential mobility, the extent to which this family lifecycle of intergenerational support is realized is uncertain. Economic uncertainty and the relative absence of public safety nets in poor settings in the global south heighten the policy relevance of addressing these issues.

This proposed ESRC-funded series of three cyberseminars will enhance the contribution of family demography to understanding intergenerational relationships and support in low- and middle-income countries. Designed to facilitate the maximum amount of international participation, three interrelated but stand-alone cyberseminars will be conducted in 2012-2014. Using a 'virtual' forum that facilitates knowledge exchange between the north and south, the cyberseminars will bring together academic researchers and students from demography and other allied disciplines, practitioners in family-centered programmes, and people involved in the collection of family data in resource-poor settings.
Seminar 1: Building consolidated concepts and methods for the study of intergenerational relationships and support in demographic research
Seminar 2: How are family dynamics in low- and middle-income countries affecting intergenerational support and can policies promote positive support in resource-poor settings?
Seminar 3: New directions in the demographic study of intergenerational networks and the health and wellbeing of families in low- and middle-income countries

Key objectives of the seminars also relate to i) promoting interest and knowledge about contemporary topics in family demography internationally; ii) creating greater awareness of the strength, scope and opportunities for family demography in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Oceania, and iii) fostering interdisciplinary academic networking and collaboration involving demographers from different regions.

The cyberseminars will be hosted by the University of Southampton with scientific and technical assistance from the Centre for Research on Ageing, the ESRC Centre for Population Change and the Worldwide University Network (WUN). The co-applicants for this ESRC cyberseminar series are drawn from major academic institutions involved in population studies: Victoria Hosegood (Africa Centre for Health and Population Studies & Southampton), Sara Randall (UCL), Kathryn Yount (Emory), Sureeporn Punpuing (Mahidol), Jacques Alioune (Malawi/Liverpool), Maria Evandrou, Sabu Padmadas, and Jane Falkingham (Southampton). This team has three project partners who will add considerable value to this ESRC cyberseminar series: The University of Southampton, the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP) and the INDEPTH Network. The seminars are also supported by the Population Council.

There are four main groups of beneficiaries from this ESRC-funded seminar series on 'Family Demography in Low- and Middle-income Countries: A Cyberseminar Series Exploring Family Change, Intergenerational Relationships and Health'

1.Seminar participants:
The immediate beneficiaries will be the cyberseminar participants and those who view the presentations and materials at a later time. Participants will be encouraged particularly from:
a)Demography professionals and students with interests in these issues and international focus. These will include members of our project partner the International Union for the Study of Population (IUSSP). Also, academics and practitioners from other related fields including gerontology, social policy and health. b) Professionals involved in the collection of data on families and households in lower income countries. This will include people working in the 42 health and demographic surveillance systems in Asia, Africa and Oceania that belong to the INDEPTH Network, another project partner supporting these cyberseminars.
c) Practitioners and policy makers from governmental and non-governmental agencies involved in policy and programme implementation related to families.

2. The field of demography and allied disciplines:
This cyberseminar will be highly visible and accessible serving to stimulate interest in the important demographic and health issues related to intergenerational relationships and health in the context of rapid population change. In addition, the field of family demography is a relatively small discipline outside Europe and North America with few specialist research forums or teaching programmes. The seminars will also increase knowledge in the social sciences about the value of applying perspectives and methods from family demography within a broader interdisciplinary approach to health research and policy dialogues.

3. Improved data collection on intergenerational relationships and support in lower-income countries:
One of the main benefits of these seminars will be to inform social scientists involved in collecting household and family data about the conceptual and measurement issues to promote improvements in the availability and types of data that are available from longitudinal surveillance systems, cohorts, demographic and health surveys and other studies.

4. Families in lower-income countries:
By promoting knowledge, training and engagement with the major issues in the demography of families and intergenerational relationships and support, this seminar series should ultimately be of benefit to families globally but particularly in the resource-poor settings. The support of the Population Council is a very important part of achieving this aim as the Population Council collaborates with governments to shape policies and increase coverage and enhance the quality of population and health programs, and to increasing the capacity of developing-country research and service organizations. The writing of policy dialogues for each seminar strand by collaborating with an invited policy maker, funder or senior programme officers will be an important tool to achieving impact in this area.