Associate Professor and MSW Program Director Ernest Gonzales’ co-authored paper “Examining the prevalence, risk and protective factors to family caregiving in China: findings from CHARLS” has received China Journal of Social Work’s (CJSW) 2019 Best Article Award. Published in CJSW Vol. 12, Issue 1 in April 2019 and lead-authored by Dr. Yihan Wang, the article reports on a study exploring the prevalence of informal caregiving to either a parent/parent-in-law or grandchild in China and examines the association with depressive symptoms.
Drs. Wang and Gonzales analyzed data from the 2011 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS). “Findings suggest that there is a high prevalence of elder and grandchild caregiving in Chinese society and they are different in a range of demographic characteristics,” they wrote. “About a quarter of the sample population take care of at least one elder parent, while slightly under half of them provide grandchild care. Elder caregivers are generally younger and better educated than grandchild caregivers, have twice the expenditure in the household and provide a moderate amount of care. On the contrary, grandchild caregivers are generally older, have lower education levels, live in rural areas, and have less expenditure per month. This is a snapshot of the two family caregiver roles in China. The study calls policy attention to rural grandparents and suggests local government mobilise more resources to alleviate their caregiving burden.”
“This article was selected due to its originality, significance of findings, and theoretical contributions to social work in China,” wrote CJSW Editor-in-Chief Hok-bun Ku in a congratulatory letter to the authors. In addition to awarding the authors a cash prize, Dr. Ku said, the journal will make their article available for free access for a limited period on the journal’s website “to encourage this excellent article to be more widely read, appreciated, and cited.”
CJSW is the first academic English journal jointly edited from Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland to focus on social work development taking place in China. The journal endeavours to provide a platform for scholars within and outside mainland China to share research, teaching and practice experiences and to facilitate critical dialogue between Chinese social workers and their international peers.
