The Study Of Rural Kinship Support In Northwest China

Kinship support is an important source of the social support for individual family, the key to maintain the normal run of daily life, one of the main research fields for the web of social support. The key of the study about kinship support are grasping the actual state of kin support and factors that influence on it. This is the focus of this article.The author conducted a field survey in the X Village located in Huining County, Gansu Province. With the perspective of correlative theories, for example, Linnan’s "’social resources theory", BianYanJie’s "strong relations theory’’and so on, by means of the participant observation, depth interviews. Through detailed case studies, combined with previous others’research. I explore the characters of "relative capital","relation intensity" and"dimensional distance" of the X village’s residents as well as the influences of "minor material support","labor support","financial support" and "emotional support" offered by kin family.Then I conclude the following opinions:Ⅰ. In the X village, the "relative capital" of kinship family has a significant impact on its financial support. It has no direct impact on "minor material support","labor support" and "emotional support".Ⅱ. In the X village, the "relation intensity" of the responded family and its kin family has an important impact on the "minor material support""labor support","financial support" and "emotional support" of their kin family.Ⅲ. In the X village, the "space distance" of the responded family and its relatives has a significant influence on the "minor material support" and "labor support", and has no direct impact on "financial support" and "emotional support".