CONNECTIONS 24(2): 59-75 http://www.sfu.ca~insna/Connections-Web/Volume24-2/242-Agree.pdf © 2001 INSNA Social Network Measures of Parent-Child Exchange: The Applications in Taiwan and the Philippines Emily M. Agree Johns Hopkins University, USA Ann E. Biddlecom University of Michigan, USA Thomas W. Valente University of Southern California, USA Ming-cheng Chang Taiwan National Institute of Family Planning, Taiwan This study draws on social network measures to describe complex flows of resources between older parents and their adult children. Using data from the 1989 Taiwan Survey of Health and Living Status of the Elderly and the 1996 Philippine Elderly Survey, we find that more than 80 percent of older Taiwanese and more than 97 percent of Filipino elderly are actively engaged in transfers with their children, yet few older persons are engaged in all of the possible transfer activity with children. Redistributive transfer patterns, where older parents receive resources from one or more children and then give resources to another child, characterize about 10 percent of older parent networks in Taiwan and 64 percent in the Philippines. In the majority of these cases, the older parents are involved in more than one redistributive flow with children. Most of these redistributive flows take place across household boundaries rather than exclusively within or outside of the household. INTRODUCTION The Intergenerational transfers in families play an important role in the social, economic, and physical well-being of older persons throughout the world. Both the resources families provide and the obligations they demand can affect such behavior as the timing and quality of retirement, migration patterns, and the use of formal health care services. Family transfers are especially important in many non-Western societies due to the lack of strong or pervasive public support systems such as social security or other old-age pensions (Kinsella and Gist, 1995) and where children and other family members are more geographically proximate (Glaser and Tomassini, 2000). Under such circum- stances, broad social networks that encompass extended family, friends and neighbors may be more common. Moreover, in less-developed economies, transfers from family members provide resources for investment or to buffer against short-term economic problems in the absence of market-based alternatives such as formal credit or insurance markets.