The Changing of Family Structure and the Population ageing
2 min readThe Changing of Family Structure
China has changed dramatically in recent years，including the changing of family structure.In traditional Chinese society，the elderly used to live with one of their children.But nowadays，more and more young adults are moving out，leaving their elderly parents alone.Many young couples now live with their parents not for family tradition，but rather because they cannot afford to buy a house or rent an apartment.Experts say familybased care is now impractical because most middle-aged children have little time to take care of their parents.So one of the things the elderly have to face nowadays is how to arrange their late years when their families can’t take care of them.
A nationwide survey found that about 23 percent of China’s seniors over the age of 65 live by themselves.Another survey conducted in Beijing showed that less than 50 percent of elderly women live with their children.
Since more and more elderly have to live alone，homes for the elderly are far from being enough to meet the needs of the elderly.
Family Support for Oid People in Rural China
In China the family is still the major welfare provider for old people in rural areas.Although the implementation of this role has varied significantly，in different historical periods，owing to social and economic changes in the rural environment，the core functions of the family have remained thesame，that is，the provision of welfare for dependants，paricularly for the aged.In the more traditional China，providing care for the aged was indeed assumed to be a paramount function of the family.Whereas，following the founding of the PRC in 1949，the welfare function of the family was reduced，as a result of the collectivization of the rural economy，which meant a part of family responsibilities being shared by collective organizations.However，after more than twenty years’experience of agricultural collectivization，China embarked on a course of further rurat economic reform in the early 1980s，replacing the commune system with one of private production based on the family unit.As a result，rural welfare responsibilities were shited back from the commune to the family，which became solely responsible for providing support for its dependent members.This paper attempts to set out the real situation with regard to family support forrural old people in China.The first section offers a brief introduction to the declining family status of rural old people as a consequence of socio economic change.The second section reviews the implications of rural economic reform for the（declining）status of old people with regard to family support，focusing on patterns of rural old age dependency and the changing roles of family caregivers.Lastly，cases of family support disputes and community responses are presented，drawing on findings from fieldwork conducted by the author between 1995 and 1996 in three rural localities in China.
