Aging & Social Change: Ninth Interdisciplinary Conference

Abstract

We present work on values transmission between generations and about the relationship between solidarity, support and transmitted values. We have built research that has allowed us to work on four generations focusing on the generation of active elders (respondents are 600 elders, 65-74 years hold, who live in Spain), their parents, children and grandchildren. The survey was carried out, in 2016, through a collaboration between the Catholic University of Milan (Italy) and the International University of Catalonia (UIC). We have referred to the Lusher ambivalence model to identify four types of solidarity then we tried to understand how the patterns are related to the values and the help given. The first results allow us to identify which values are associated with the most functional reciprocity patterns (emancipation and solidarity). In particular: those who are placed in the emancipation mode to mature reciprocally (12.5%) have received and transmitted mainly the values of friendship, religion and solidarity, while those who are in solidarity mode to preserve consensually (18.5%) have received and transmitted the values of culture, environment, fidelity and family. Moreover this generation of young Spanish elders allows us to understand well the route of secularization that has gone through Western societies, noting that it is not so much the reference to the value that has changed, but the meaning that is attributed to the different values.