Family Support for Old 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 the same, that is, the provision of welfare for dependants, particularly 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 rural 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 shifted 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 for rural 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.