The social context of ageing and intergenerational relationships in Chinese families

* Correspondence: [email protected] SOAS China Institute, SOAS University of London, London WC1H 0XG, UK Full list of author information is available at the end of the article Population ageing is a global issue, primarily in richer and developed countries, and raises questions about the place of elders in society, their quality of life, and care for those who can no longer care for themselves, as well as the wider socio-economic consequences of population imbalance. China is a very specific case as the demographic transition from a youthful society to an ageing one took place at an earlier stage of economic development than in most richer countries and has happened much faster. This is partly a consequence of the imposition of the one child-policy, rather than a gradual decrease in family size through couples choosing to have fewer children, but also reflects a particularly dramatic increase in life expectancy over the last half century, from around 43 in the 1960s to 76 in 2014. The one-child policy was introduced in 1979, after which couples were only allowed to give birth to one child. In urban areas, this policy was strictly implemented through the work unit (danwei) (Liu 2007). Since the work unit was the most important (sometimes only) source of livelihood for urban residents prior to the 1990s, urban couples had to comply with this social control, for which they were compensated with a pension from their work unit (Liu 2007). But in rural areas, since farmers were largely dependent on their children to assist with farm work and old age support, there was considerable resistance. As a result, from the mid-1980s, the state modified the policy for rural couples so that if their first child was a girl they were allowed another child (Hesketh et al. 2005). More recently, the policy has been relaxed for urban couples as well, in part because of concerns about China’s ageing society. In 2015, the number of people in China who were 60 and over had reached 222 million (16% of the population, China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs 2016). By 2050, this number is expected to exceed 400 million (35% of the population). What makes China different, and the challenges more acute, is the sheer number of people (almost 20% of the world’s population), the stage of economic development, and the relatively low GNP. While state policy has played a critical part in contributing to super ageing in China (Joseph and Phillips 1999), the state is reluctant to provide comprehensive welfare and pension support for all its citizens, especially rural residents due to the long institutionalized urban-rural divide. As a result, families remain the main source of welfare and support in contemporary China (Shang and Wu 2011). Chinese families bear the brunt of this demographic challenge in a wider context of extremely rapid socio-economic transformations since the inception of the economic The Journal of Chinese Sociology