Structural Transformation of the Chinese Family and Policy Responses
Nearly 500 million families are still the foundation of Chinese society presently.They still play a unique role in raising children and supporting older adults,providing emotional comfort,economic support,and protecting against risks that family members encounter.They are also the cornerstone in stimulating social vitality,facilitating social production,providing social protection,improving social governance,and passing on social civilization.Additionally,they play a strategic role in promoting social cohesion and solidarity,maintaining societal harmony,and constructing the socialist civilization.Using the aggregate data from multiple waves of national population censuses,supplemented by representative sample survey data,as well as logical and theoretical thinking,this work analyzes the changes in China's family structure,explores the causes and consequences of the transformation of the family structure,and reflects on the measures to cope with the consequences of the structural transformation of the family.The results show that the current structure of the Chinese family is characterized by eight major transformations,e.g.,delayed age of family formation,expansion of childless households,smaller family size,fewer generations,networked living arrangements,universalization of empty-nest households,aging of age structure,and diversification of family types.In the last decade,one-person and one-generation households have been the fastest growing,while the standard nuclear family has been the fastest declining,household types.Family change is the inevitable result of structural changes such as industrialization,urbanization and modernization,and is also deeply influenced by institutional and attitudinal factors,which in turn bring about a series of economic,social and cultural consequences for population characteristics of China and family functions and relationships.The impacts are both positive and negative,which may have spillover effects on family cohesion and long-term development capacity,and pose challenges to economic development and social stability.Specifically,macro-structural forces have shaken the foundations of family structure rooted in agricultural mode of reproduction,and institutional factors have diminished the meaning of the traditional family for individuals.Moreover,young people's views on marriage,childbearing,and the family have recon-figured the values of,and even taken a"bite out of"the traditional concept of the extended family,thus bringing about the difficulties in childbearing and childrearing,in old-age support,and in social gover-nance.However,current public policies tend to emphasize the responsibility of the family to the state and neglect the state's support for the family;they tend to support individuals,rather than to support the family as a whole,and they tend to favor the vulnerable family over the ordinary family.This makes it difficult to respond effectively to the problems that the majority family faces due to the structural transformation of the family.It is,therefore,necessary to carefully study and pay comprehensive attention to the new situations,problems and features of the family,make the demands of the family an important part of the government responsibility at all levels,incorporate them into the overall planning and deployment of state governance,and establish a mechanism for providing family services.It is also necessary to improve the system for working with the family,collaborate on family-supporting policies,help resolve family conflicts,and to enhance the ability of the family to develop in the long term.In the period of the 15th Five-Year Plan,it is necessary to base our efforts on the family,making support policies for the elderly,children,and young adults within families as breakthrough points,innovative aspects,and key elements of public support policies,integrating a family-first perspective into all relevant policies,and providing guidance to value the family.The three systems of family support should be established and improved to provide institutional and service guarantees for responding to the transformation of the family;the whole process of family support should be strengthened to respond to the dilemmas of childbearing and childrearing,and the difficulties in caring for the older adults;and a positive and healthy family culture in the new era should be cultivated to promote effective solutions to the problems of social governance,so as to alleviate the family's worries about the elderly,the difficulties in childcare,and the difficulty of balancing work and parenthood,and to enhance the ability of the family for long-term development.In view of the important role of the family for individuals and society,relevant policymaking should also take full account of family changes and place the family at the forefront of public policy.In other words,the construction of a family policy should not be a stopgap measure for the State due to the pressure on its human resources,but rather should be aimed at enhancing the functioning of the family,its resilience and the building of its long-term development capacity.
Family TransformationFamily ChangeFamily StructureFamily Life CycleFamily FunctionFamily Support Policy
万方数据
维普
