中欧社会论坛 - China Europa ForumThe Logic of Fairness in Intergenerational Relations and its Evolution
Authors: Guo Yuhua （郭于华）
Supporting the elderly and honouring our parents is a moral standard that our nation has always been proud of and it is also the pride of many Western cultural traditions. Scholars have used the terms « relay model » and « feedback model » to distinguish between the intergenerational relations in Western countries and China (Fei Xiaotong, 1985c: pp.85-103): in Western cultures, parents have the duty to nurture their children but the children do not necessarily have to be responsible for supporting their parents when they grow up. They are only responsible for the nurturing of the next generation, so the intergenerational relation is like a relay; on the contrary, the intergenerational relationship in China requires children to repay their parents for bringing them up, and it is the child’s responsibility to support their elderly parents. This model of reciprocity has the concept of « to feed » and « to feed in return », thus developing a belief among the people to « bear more children so that it would bring more happiness » and to « raise children to prepare for old age ».
In contemporary rural China, the onus is on the family and children to support the elderly. In view of the traditional Chinese patrilineal descent system, to put it more accurately it is the son and his spouse’s responsibility (families with no male descendants are an exception). A society-dependent form of retirement is still in its pilot phase in the cities and minority of rural areas. Since the « feedback model » of intergenerational relations has not changed, its standards and logic should not be changed either. The image of elderly who have worked hard their entire lives enjoying life being honoured and cared for by their children and grandchildren is still one that people idealise about. However the reality of what we have seen and heard in the northern parts of the rural areas is far from this idealised image.
Through the analysis of the stories of the elderly in XY village, it has been noticed that the change in the rural economic and social structure in the past 50 years, the change in allocation of resources and expansion of social mobility and the scale of exchanges since the opening up of China, as well as the increase in the pace of life have led to a change in the traditional value of filial piety and supporting one’s parents. The transition in values and rules has posed a problem to the support of the elderly in rural areas. The study of the issue of support - in particular the process of investigating, analysing, comparing similarities and differences between traditional and modern views - is an appropriate way of understand the logic of fairness in kinship groups. It is also a dynamic way of understanding society and the change of culture.
Research has shown that in traditional societies, intergenerational relations and the interaction between parents and their children are built on the basis of an exchange. It includes the exchange of concrete needs such as material and financial needs, as well as the abstract exchange of emotions and symbolism; its impartiality is that what an individual sows is balanced by what he will reap. The maintenance of intergenerational exchange relations lies in the authority of the male elders in traditional families as well as the clan systems and their moral and ethical norms. At the same time, the national ideology of Confucian thinking has also provided a legitimate and orthodox basis for rules of operation in the local community.
This research is intended to reflect on how the country has, through the changes in intergenerational relations, made use of administrative power and the symbolic system to change the original norms and logic of operations in the rural community. Of course, we do not think that the traditional logic of intergenerational relations and its corresponding cultural significance is entirely reasonable and perfect. It is at the expense of the younger generation and women’s subjectivity, it can be rigid, ridiculous and even cruel, but it is after all a self-sufficient method of sustaining life and a mechanism for society to operate. It is also the core of the spirit of the Chinese culture. Through the elderly support system and its changes in rural areas, we are trying to understand the process in which the country, society and cultural significance interact in a specific historical period. This process therefore resolves the conflict between the structure of a traditional society and its corresponding structure of cultural significance.