Modern family

 

Cartoon by Gou Ben; Poem by Long Yuan

 

Treated with filial piety,
Parents are gratified and have dignity.
In trying times, when troubles never seem to cease,
A happy family remains a constant source of peace.
Children are educated to stand on their own,
And self-reliance is what makes them grown.
People’s way of life may have changed,
But the centrality of family must stay the same.

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Though China is constantly in a state of flux, the family remains the basis for a stable and harmonious society. By looking at how the Chinese family has evolved as an institution, scholars can help to benefit society by encouraging the development of healthy families.

 

Changing structure
Changes in the family structure affect family functions and interpersonal relations, including intergenerational and spousal relations.

The most common form continues to be the nuclear family. Here, parents and married children have fewer intergenerational conflicts because they form independent living units. But at the same time, the frequency of intergenerational interaction and assistance decreases.

The communication among married members of different generations has weakened. Also, more and more middle-aged and elderly parents are living away from their children or all alone. They can enjoy leisure life but have to face increasing loneliness in their later years.

At the same time, there is an enormous working-age population from rural areas entering cities for employment. Family members of different generations are living separately and they are unable to care for each other when needed. Though a basic social welfare system covering all of China has been established, there are still obstacles in practice.

Family members’ living conditions vary in cities and rural areas. The elderly are affected more in terms of family status, especially those in the countryside who have less wealth and limited access to social welfare. Meanwhile, cities continue to encroach on rural areas, fundamentally altering the basis of family relations, including geographic situations, blood relationships and career development. Families in newly established communities tend to be isolated from their neighbors, so they lose a source of social support.

There is also a mismatch between living conditions and public welfare. The larger scale of commodity trade and residential construction allows more families access to better living conditions, but construction of associated facilities, such as schools and nursing homes, lags behind. As a result, no social advantage can make up for the shortcomings caused by moving to a new place.

In addition, younger workers leave their hometowns and seek jobs in order to improve the financial condition of their families. But even if they can make it, no one can replace them as parents to their dependent children. And the number of left-behind children is increasing.

 

Goals
Families should strive to realize the following goals in the process of construction. Family members’ accomplishments and quality of life should be promoted, thus fundamentally changing the imbalance in intergenerational relations while encouraging friendships among neighbors.

Family construction should be realized by establishing and perfecting different forms of institutions. Families are products of institutions,  which are the basis for adjustments of family construction.

Laws and policies concerning family affairs, such as improvements to the social pension and medical care systems, need to be built and perfected to allow the public to share in the fruits of development regardless of region, profession or social status.

Also, institutions that are unfavorable for family development need to be reformed, such as the current household registration system, because of the constraints these policies place on families. The nature of the current system results in different members of the family living apart from one another. So far, headway has been made in this aspect, but further efforts are still needed.

Domestic relations should be adjusted, which is vital to family stability in family construction. In terms of parent-offspring relation, the imbalance of generational responsibilities should be addressed. Parents should be rational when raising children and paying for their education, so the children will be independent in the future. Grown children should take the initiative to take care of parents and give them emotional comfort. In addition, parents are expected to not only provide financial support but also educate children on social norms and individual morals. In line with this, China should set up festivals with family themes and improve institutions to enhance the values of the public. With regard to spousal relations, couples should respect each other and devote themselves to marriage. With fewer children, more parents and their children are living in the different places due to work or marriage. Increasing life expectancy means parents living alone may have to do so for a longer time. Therefore, a harmonious spousal relationship is crucial to the happiness of families.

Family members should sustain a stable living environment. Individuals live in family units, which adhere to social units of different stratums. Families that are almost isolated from society for long tend to have various problems. Platforms for communication need to be constructed in the countryside at the community level. Newly established communities can turn strangers into acquaintances through public activities. Only in this way, can communication and understanding among families be possible, thus neighbors can help out with each other.

More social support should be accessible in raising children and taking care of the elderly people. There is a strong need for regulated social services because it is hard for nuclear families to fulfil these obligations. To solve it, the government should invest more in public service facilities and introduce commercial organizations with favorable tax and rent policies to meet the needs of residents.

More attention should be paid to families with hardships. While it is their mission to support all families, governments and social organizations should give more support to socially vulnerable families with  only one child lost, with physically disabled members or low income.

 

Collaborative efforts
Family construction is a systematic social project that requires a holistic perspective. In modern society, family members of all ages are pursuing different benefits due to their different goals. The primary problem after building families is living location, and then it comes to education of offspring, at last it turns to the later life when children leave. The different internal relations at different stages hint at corresponding external functions. To some extent, each family member’s life and death, as well as aging and sickness are related to family construction. Any ignorance and problems at any stage could cause hardship to the  family.

The traditional family morals should be adapted to modern times. Chinese traditions regarding family morals are rooted in agricultural, local and patriarchal society. Some can be adopted today, but some do have limits. For example, there is more to filial piety than supporting relatives. It also carries with it the notion that women are inferior to men. In the modern times, the parent-offspring relation should be based on today’s law and values with reference to traditional family morals.

Families, communities and governments should make collaborative efforts in family construction, but the family unit is the center that the initiatives of members directly affect the results. Social organizations, especially communities or villages,  are the main creators of family environment and the major provider of family external functions. In addition, governments play an irreplaceable role in making family-related public welfare and service strategies.

Domestic education and atmosphere are vital to family construction. In the past, domestic education internally directed and controlled the behavior of family members with rules. The family atmosphere externally represented their behaviors. At that time, people lived together under clans that set, implemented and supervised family rules. Contemporary cities and towns are made up of a migrant population, so the role of clans is weakening. To make it happen, communities where family members have the most communication should emphasize promoting abilities of community members. In this way, widely accepted family norms and stimulating policies will be established and perfected through active interaction in communications, thus creating new forms of family education and family atmosphere.

 

Wang Yuesheng is a research fellow from the Institute of Population and Labor Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.