In an ageing society with fewer children, negotiating the socialization of adolescents is rather challenging. At the same time, the socialization  function of families during the transition from adolescence to adulthood and greater independence has weakened. Given these circumstances,  socialization in local communities has been a pressing issue, particularly when one expects support from the elderly.
 One potential link between the two generations is suggested by Erikson's life span ego-development task (1950), wherein generativity refers to  an adult's concern with establishing and guiding the next generation. However, this theory is not applicable in the case of communication  between the elderly and children in Japan, because, as Suzuki (2008) has pointed out, Erikson's life span stages are not supposed to be fixed  according to age but are flexible and depend on the environment.
 The aim of the present study is, therefore, to explore (1) how we can identify the exchanges between the elderly and children in local  communities, (2) how an aged person's generativity contributes to the socialization of children in the local community, and (3) how it has been  accepted by the people in that community.
 First, a cluster analysis of 133 articles on exchanges between aged persons and children reveal three clusters of inter-generational exchanges:  inter-generational exchanges by NPOs or volunteer groups (Cluster 1), inter-generational exchanges by the government (Cluster 2), and inter-generational exchanges by groups of aged persons (Cluster 3). Most importantly, Cluster 3 is applicable to my subject—generativity and the  socialization of children. It was suggested that an aged person's generativity contributes to the socialization of children in the local community  through exchanges.
 Second, I focused on exchanges by senior volunteers in order to consider generativity and child socialization in local communities. Qualitative  interviews with senior volunteers in two local communities—Terakoya activities in City A and School Support Volunteers in City B—reveal three  types of constructive styles of generativity in the inter-generational exchanges in local communities. First, senior volunteers consider themselves  the transmitters of socially contributory activities. Second, they see themselves as being involved in raising their grandchildren. Third, certain  senior volunteers tended to describe their motivation as emerging from individual concerns such as healthcare, companionship, and resources. 
It is noteworthy that almost all volunteers broaden their interest in their grandchildren to include all the children in the local community through  various activities.
 Third, I examined the social background that enables the elderly people in two communities to identify how they perceive the inter-generational  exchanges. It is revealed that the trust relationship among schools, the local government, and volunteers in local communities is constructed  through activities. Hence, the challenge for local communities is to support and arrange for social backgrounds, taking into consideration the  various types of motivation for getting involved in volunteer work and making use of senior volunteer's generativity to ensure that the right person  is in the right place for the socialization of children.