Filial Responsibility in Contemporary Muslim Indonesia: Reconfiguring Religiously-grounded Elder Care Practices

This study examines how Muslim families in Indonesia reinterpret and enact filial responsibility amid rapid socio-economic change and expanding digital infrastructures. Despite the centrality of birr al-wālidayn—the Islamic ethic of honoring and caring for parents—in shaping family obligations, research has rarely explored how these religious imperatives interact with modern constraints such as migration, urban labor demands, and technological mediation. Drawing on in-depth interviews, participant observation, and digital ethnography involving 36 participants across urban and semi-rural regions, this study develops the concept of Islamic Filial Responsibility (IFR) to capture the interplay between normative religious teachings and lived caregiving practices.Findings reveal that elder care is framed as a divinely grounded duty, but its practical enactment is negotiated through distributed caregiving roles, gendered labor expectations, and digitally mediated forms of presence. Digital tools, including WhatsApp, video calls, and telemedicine, enable adult children to sustain emotional closeness, coordinate daily care, and fulfill moral obligations across distance. These practices illustrate a significant shift from proximity-based care toward intentional, coordinated, and technologically supported forms of filial engagement. The study highlights the contributions of community and religious institutions, which complement family-based care and help address care gaps for ageing parents. By articulating IFR, this study extends the global filial piety literature beyond its East Asian and secular paradigms, illustrating the intersection of religious ethics, digital mediation, and socio-economic realities in shaping intergenerational care within Muslim-majority societies. The findings offer implications for gerontology, Islamic studies, and digital sociology, and underscore the need for policy frameworks that integrate cultural, religious, and technological dimensions of elder care, ensuring more comprehensive support for ageing populations.