About

Huijing Wu holds her Ph.D. in Sociology at BGSU. The research interests include partnership, union formation, family structure, caregiving, health, and well-being in older adulthood.

She is an Assistant Research Fellow at the Institute of European and American Studies (IEAS), Academia Sinica, Taiwan. This position starts in 2024 Jan.

Her research training focuses on demography and family studies. The training includes the methodologies of demography and sociology. The research interests are Aging and the Life Course Gender, Demography, Family Studies, Quantitative research methods, & Cross-national comparative study.

Research Statement 

Her dissertation examines living apart together (LAT) relationships and how they differ from other relationship types in later life. This project provides a new measurement of LAT relationships using Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS) data. The research shows that LAT relationships have unique meanings for older adults and contribute to providing implications about the psychological well-being of LAT in later life. The related work has been published in the Journal of Family Issues & Marriage & Family Review. 

The recent work focuses on how family structure is related to helping older adults experiencing difficulty with personal care or self-mobility across various contexts. The research project examines how lack of close kin may affect care gaps in later life and should raise attention to caregiving needs in the aging population. One paper about care gaps has been published in the Journals of Gerontology: Series B.

Current & Future Direction. The rapid changes in family structure and increases in the aging population in recent decades raise concerns about how people prepare for and cope with issues in an aging society. Older adults are more likely to be single and have fewer children, implying increased living alone and a lack of family support networks among older people. Thus, it is vital to understand current and future trends in the aging population and how to provide support when people get older. The ongoing work remains looking at family structure, caregiving, health, and well-being changes in older adulthood.