This article examines the degree to which the traditional family support system would
be reshaped by the modernization and industrialization from a geo-developmental perspective.
In particular, we examine the impact of rapid social changes and economic developments on
family support for older parents in contemporary urban China to assess trends that might lead to
a different path from the western style of old-age support purported by modernization theory.
Based on the 1992 Survey on China’s Support Systems for the Elderly, the study divides the
sample from three levels of economic development, which in turn, are used as proxies for
developmental trends. It finds that intergenerational support in urban China is persistent as far as
instrumental support is concerned, and the level of support follows a U-shaped pattern along the
level of economic development. It is the mid-developed urban areas that intergenerational
support seems the weakest. If the pattern from less-developed to developed-urban areas reflect a
developmental path, then the trajectory seems to correspond to our expectations. The beginning
and developed stage represent a transitional period during which rapid urbanization processes
and greater geographic separation between parents and adult children often leads to weakened
intergenerational support for the elderly. The study concludes that although the old age support
system, on the whole, in China will diverge from the path of the West, some aspects of economic
support to the elderly will likely be consistent with modernization theory.