| "Filial piety has always been an important part of traditional Chinese culture,and the changes in the concept of filial piety have been a matter of concern and research.After the reform and opening up,China is experiencing drastic social transformation and social changes,meanwhile,China has entered an aging society,and by 2020,the population aged 65 and above will be about 190 million,accounting for 13.5% of the total population.In the context of China’s social retirement is not yet well developed,the filial piety-based family retirement model is still very important and more likely to provide an effective solution to various social problems brought about by the aging population,and is also in an indispensable position in the current Chinese society.Therefore,it is of great practical importance to study whether and how the concept of filial piety has changed.From previous studies,it seems that scholars have proposed different perspectives to explain the changing status of filial concepts during the modernization process,such as the traditional filial decline theory,the traditional filial resilience theory,and the traditional filial transformation theory.However,these studies focus more on examining the changing patterns of filial concepts in society as a whole.In this paper,we will distinguish different generations and different generational units to study the changing situation of filial piety concepts,which will help to better understand the changing situation of filial concepts of our people and enrich the research related to filial concepts.Using data from the 2006 and 2017 Chinese General Social Surveys,this paper combines modernization theory,life course theory and generation theory to analyze the differences in the changing filial piety concepts of people in different generations in the same historical period,as well as the differences in the changing filial piety concepts of people in different generation units within the same generation in the same historical period,starting from the perspective of generations and generation units.There are four generations examined in this study: the New China Generation,the Cultural Revolution Generation,the Reform and Opening-up Generation,and the Transition Generation.The former mainly contains the subcomponents of filial concepts of "respecting relatives and being sincere" and "offering sacrifices",while the latter contains the subcomponents of The former consists of two subcomponents of filial concepts: "suppressing oneself and obeying one’s relatives" and "protecting and honoring one’s relatives".The results of the study show that,in terms of changes in filial piety concepts across generations,the reciprocal filial concepts of all four generations showed an upward trend between 2006 and 2017,with the New China generation showing the largest increase in reciprocal filial concepts and the Transition generation showing the smallest increase in reciprocal filial concepts;the authoritative filial concepts of all four generations showed a downward trend during this period,with the Reform and Opening-up generation showing the largest decrease in authoritative filial concepts and the Cultural Revolution generation showing the smallest decrease in authoritative filial concepts.The decline in authoritative filial piety is the greatest for the Reform and Opening-up generation and the least for the Cultural Revolution generation.Further analysis reveals that even within the same generation,there are significant differences in the change of filial piety perceptions among different generational units.For example,in the education generation unit,the reciprocal filial piety perceptions of the uneducated increased significantly more than those of the educated,and the authoritative filial perceptions of the educated decreased more than those of the uneducated.Among the urban and rural generational units,the reciprocal filial piety perceptions of rural residents in the New China,Cultural Revolution,and Reform and Opening Generations increased significantly more than those of urban residents between 2006 and 2017,while in the Transition Generation,on the contrary,the reciprocal filial perceptions of urban residents increased significantly more than those of rural residents during this period;the authoritative filial perceptions of urban residents in the four generations The decline of authoritative filial piety is generally higher among urban residents than rural residents in all four generations.In the gender generational unit,except for the transition generation,in the other three generations examined in this paper,women’s reciprocal filial piety perceptions generally increased more than men’s between 2006 and 2017,while in the transition generation,men’s reciprocal filial perceptions generally increased more than women’s during this period;women’s authoritative filial perceptions decreased significantly more than men’s in the four generations during this period.significantly higher for women than for men across all four generations.In conclusion,the results of this study suggest that the pattern of change in filial attitudes varies across generations and between generational units.The findings also suggest that the changing patterns of filial piety concepts in different social groups during the modernization process are not convergent.This paper argues that the different trends in the change of filial values among generations may be related to the differences in the social background,social events and life events experienced by different generations.The differences in the changes in filial values among different generational units may be the result of unique "generational styles" within different generational units. |
PDF Full Text Request