Study On The Generation Relationship Change Of Chinese Families

If the generation relationship is not harmonious, it will affect the society. Harmonious generation relationship is a symbol of civilized society, for which, respecting the old, loving the children is not only a business of individual and family, but is also an event related to the nation, the race and the whole human society.Family is the smallest unit of a society. The harmonious generation relationship is the base of social stability. At present, our society has entered into the ageing period that the old population is increasing, family generations are adding, and generation relationship is becoming complex. The changes of ideas, life styles and living ways make generation relationship rub and old providing thought fade. How to solve a society's changing conflicts among generations, how to bridge generation gaps as far as possible, is related to family happiness and stability. With the changes of family ethics and generation relations at the modern era and the rapidly developing aging process, these researches of generation relation's tendency have important theoretical and realistic significance."Filial piety" is a typical manifestation of Chinese traditional family generation's ethics. Earliest existing ancient works《The book of history》(《Shang Shu》)had talked about such old culture. "Filial morality" expanded by the Confucianism scholars greatly accelerated the development of China. The construction of the socialism modernization, also request us inherit and develop the harmonious generation relationship which had existed for thousands of years.Because of the inspiration of family planning, reward policy and the fulfillment of procreation policy, traditional procreation idea and ideology gradually changed into modern thought, which preference of kid's sex weakened, grow behavior and will both inclined. This also influenced the change of generation relationship that the family structure is becoming smaller gradually, from traditional family of 5-6 members to 3.44 persons in 2000. One percent population sampling manifestation in the whole country in 2005 showed: average population of a family is 3.13, comparing with the fifth national census, reduced 0.31 people.The structure of current Chinese families have a tendency to become miniature and nucleus families, they become less dependent upon relatives, and more equal with different generations. These changes break the traditional domestic generational relationship, leading its gravity down. The decline of relationship among generations resulted from the changes of institutions, increase of population, variances of families and the shifts of values. In turn, it impacts the old providing method by peripheralizing the position of the old, so the old will face difficulties in their last years. It also impair the socialization of the youth, which is not benefit for cultivating the perfect personalities, by even appearing some reverse phenomenon that youth depended on their parents totally. In inhabitation, with more nuclear families forming, more old men live alone which is called empty nest family contrasting to tradition that many generations live under the same roof. In some living separately instances, because of short distance, children kept frequent contact with parents, which is called intimate distance. It shows that in nuclear families, father generation and child generation still maintain a separate but intimate relationship.The traditional domestic function dwindled, under the impact of industrialization, civilization, procreation policy and market economy. Some statistics showed, 98% Chinese old citizens live in various generational families, but according to the investigations from China Research Center on Aging, only 5.3% old men in cities were cared by relatives, nurses, neighbors, volunteers, local communities. That is to say modernization can only gradually change the co-inhabiting form of members in different generations, and this form was weakened with the development of economy, improvement of living standard, reform of housing policy, bettering of housing conditions, amelioration of system of social security.Aging progressed rapidly in China, but the time difference with economic development predicted we couldn't build a perfect system which society providing for the aged recently. We expect when we establish and polish the social system to provide the old, meanwhile, we can fully explore and utilize the existing family providing resources and harmonious relationships among generations, combing them with reality to take up the gauntlet of aging. Research shows, that the"supporting the aged in the housing"system is fit for Chinese national condition, according to which, the aged is mainly provided by family, assisted by community, and guaranteed by social insurance system.The economic support, life care and spiritual comfort of the aged can't be separated from all the family members. And the household provide for the aged is just bases upon harmonious relationship among generations. There has been much research concerning the satisfactory degree of the aged at the relationship among generations. But little has been conducted from the angle of the young generation in households. Based on statistics on current condition of the countryside youth in Fushun City and previous studies, this paper tries to analyze the influence factors from the young people's perspective in the countryside. And the author believes that the study will have practical significance for household relationship among generations in the new countryside construction.Establishing a harmonious generational relationship needs a long-term breaking-in. Facing the challenge of aging, setting up a favorable social morals, that all citizens honor old and love children, old and young depend on each other, different generations live harmoniously, people can share all the fruits, is the urgent need of establishing a modern harmonious society, which can secure the harmony of families and concord of society, can assure the politics stable, economy developing, society progressing, and can accelerate the progress of building up a harmonious society. At the end of this essay, the author gave some advices, according to how to establish a positive generational relationship, how to inherit and carry forward the Chinese traditional moral that honor old love children, how to cope with the old providing pressure brought by aging phenomenon. From microcosmical point, the members from different generations should take care of each other, respect and understand mutually, communicate regularly to found a new epoch family morals; from macroscopic point, society should perfect related laws and policies, better the system of society providing for the aged, explore the various old providing methods such as utilizing community service, and set up a scientific, civilized and progressive new procreation culture.