The Continuity And Change Of The Feedback Model

The unbalance of intergenerational support (UIS), such as the crisis of supportingelder parents in rural families and the problem of NEET (Not currently engaged inEmployment, Education or Training) in cities, attracts much public attention anddiscussion in today’s China. However, among the existing quantitive studies based onsampling data, the results are still emphasize the close relation between adult childrenand their parents, the continuation and reproduction of Chinese traditional familismculture, while pay less attention to the change characteristics of the intergenerationalrelationship.Taking UIS as the study object, this dissertation reveals the changes ofintergenerational relationship happened both in the culture level and behavior levelthat covered by the “traditional coat” of tight relationship. In the existing quantitivestudies, there usually comprised a large proportion of very old people in the studysample with a common purpose of studying family security. Different from thosestudies, this study uses a data with relative young sample (age from21to65) thatcollected both in Shanghai and Lanzhou, focuses on the “exchange stage” other than“support stage” of the Chinese intergenerational relationship, analyses the reciprocalrelationship between interviewees and their parents and their adult childrenrespectively.Three chapters constitute the main body of this dissertation. Bivariate and multivariateanalysis methods are used and many groups (parents-children; urban family-ruralfamily; developed area-underdeveloped area) difference are tested. Three mainquestions are answered:1) Is there a trend of UIS in contemporary China?2) If threeis. What causes it?3) What role does the cultural value play in this process? The mainconclusions are as follows:Firstly, the trend of UIS can be proved by three aspects of evidence:1)In general,adult children get more and play “receiver” other than “giver” in the supportrelationship comparative with their parents. The flow of financial support, houseworkhelp and emotional support are all from parents to children.2) Respondents bothhaving old parents and adult children report that more resources and support havegiven to children other than parents. The next generation preference in resourcedistribution takes more severely in rural families.3) The group comparative resultsshow that those parents give more instrumental help to children report less emotionalsupport that got from children.Secondly, the traditional family corporate model and familism culture are theinstitutional guarantee of Feedback Model of intergenerational support. But manychanges have taken place to these two institutions according to the data analysisresults. On one hand, the traditional corporate model controlled by old generation haschanged into a model controlled by adult children. The instrumental dependencebetween generations and the importance of rational corporation are still emphasized.But in this new family model, the interests of old parents are diverging from the whole family’s interests. Because the young generation holds the whole family’sfuture, according to Pareto Optimality, family resources would be mostly put on theyoung people and the old parents would just get the least resources. As a result, theprinciple of intergenerational support behavior takes on a mixed logic of rationalexchange and reciprocal altruism.On the other hand, the traditional familism that based on responsibility ethics isaltering to a kind of “modern familism”. According to the data results, as thetraditional value of Xiao (filial piety)--to support, serve and honor parents--stillremains high prevalence, individualism which stressing subjectivity is emerging. Lessacceptance of being obedient to parental generation’s authority and multipleintergenerational residence arrangements are the evidences. The ethic of limitlessresponsibility for children that parents shouldered gets less agreement among theinvestigated areas. Adult children relying on parents lost cultural legitimacy but thereality is that parents are shouldering more and more instrumental dependence fromtheir adult children, which caused conflicts. Besides, under the background ofweakened ethic of responsibility, the psychological basis that make Feedback Modelachieving balance also disappeared.Thirdly, the UIS can not be simply blamed to the decline of Xiao ethic. On one hand,there are not data evidence can prove the trend of filial piety declining among theyoung generation. By contrast, the tendency giving more consideration to the old thanthe young is very obvious. The younger interviewees give more priority to theirparents than the older as well as opposing more to the ethics of parents’ limitlessresponsibility for children. On the other hand, the net value effects are very little inthe intergenerational instrumental support models. In fact, the local economicdevelopment and the security system play very important roles. The reason of the UISand intergenerational conflicts is that burden brought by the insufficient nationalsystem is beyond family tolerance. That is to say, because the construction of nationalsecurity system falls behind the rapid modernization, tension and disharmny areproduced between excessive intergenerational instrumental dependence and theabsence of institutional support to family.