FILIAL OBLIGATIONS IN CHINESE FAMILIES III that same enterprise.Under this procedure(termed the dingrisystem),adult children ended up not simply living in the same city,but working and usu- ally living in the same work-unit complex with their parents.In sum,de- spite the anti-Confucian rhetoric of the Chinese Communist Party during the Mao era,the workings of Chinese socialism and the absence of a labor market actually kept most grown children tied closely to their aging parents. The economic reforms launched in China after 1978 had not altered this im- mobility very much as of the time of our Baoding survey in 1994. When it comes to the household arrangements of Baoding parents,how- ever,things look decidedly less traditional.It is true that about 64 percent of Baoding parents live with one or more grown child.However,a substantial proportion of this coresidence involves relatively young parents living with an unmarried child or children.(The reader should keep in mind that our Bao- ding parent sample included individuals as young as so.)Only about 3s per- cent of Baoding parents were living in extended families with one or more marriedchild.Even of those over age 60,less than 40 percent live in such ex- tended families.The predominant family form of the Baoding elderly is thus nuclear-residence either only with a spouse,or with a spouse and one or more unmarried children.In other words,it is not obligatory,and further- more it is not even the most common situation,for an older Baoding parent to reside in an extended family with a married child.While we will examine the comparison with Taiwan later,it appears that the Baoding situation in 1994 represents a substantial decrease in extended family living for the elderly compared to the past(and to the situation in contemporary rural China). When they do live in an extended family unit,it is almost always a stem family structure with only one married child,rather than the traditionally favored joint family involving two or more married children and their fam- ilies.In such stem families in Baoding it is still much more common to live with a married son,rather than with a married daughter.Specifically,it is about three times as common to live with a married son as with a married daughter.The departure from traditional arrangements revealed in our Baoding data involves the propensity of elderly Baoding residents to live separately from all of their married children in a nuclear family,rather than any tendency to coreside with a married daughter instead of a son. It should be emphasized once again that Baoding parents do not end up in nuclear family structures because there are no grown children available to live with.As noted earlier,most have several children available,and for the
I12 WHYTE older parents in our sample,most of those grown children are married.But coresidence with a married child does not seem to be necessary,and it may not even be preferred.(See Chapters I and 4for discussion of the preferences of rural elderly for living arrangements.)While an interpretation of this pat- tern must await the presentation of data on other aspects of intergenera- tional relations,the figures just presented seem to point to an increasing ac- ceptance of a new pattern some have termed"networked families"(wanglo jiating),with parents living near several grown children who cooperate in providing support and assistance,but without the need to coreside with any one such child in order to find old-age security. Financial security is a concern of the aged in any society,and in agrarian societies that security comes from having grown children to support you.In China in the past it was said that one had sons to guard against old age,and that the more sons one had,the more prosperous one would become(and presumably remain as one became elderly).What is the situation in con- temporary Baoding?The first point to stress is that most of the Baoding parents we interviewed had earnings of their own and did not have to face total dependency on their children.Overall,about 85 percent had some earnings,with 25 percent having wage income only,sI percent having pen- sion income only,and 9 percent enjoying both pensions and wages.Men are favored over women in this realm,both in terms of continuing to work and receive wages until a more advanced age,and also by being more likely to have met the qualifications for pensions from their work units.2 However, given the low figures on widowhood presented earlier,most parents who do not have any income of their own (primarily mothers)often have a spouse who does.In other words,for the great majority of Baoding parents,there is no need to rely totally on support from grown children to obtain financial security.For most Baoding elderly,financial contributions from children are supplementary,rather than primary and essential. To what extent do grown children provide financial support to their par- ents,even if such support is not essential?We inquired about such financial support in two forms-both cash assistance and the provision of food,cloth- ing,and other material goods.Overall,only about one fourth of Baoding parents were receiving cash assistance from their children,while a little over one third were receiving material goods,with the proportions increasing with the age of the parent.We had expected that at least token cash or other
FILIAL OBLIGATIONS IN CHINESE FAMILIES I3 material assistance would be given by most children,but that turns out not to be the case.Most parents in the sample were not receiving financial assis- tance from their children,and the provision of such assistance reflects parental needs more than simply customary expectations.As noted above, most Baoding parents do not have strong financial needs,and quite a few (about 19 percent)even follow the more modern pattern of providing cash regularly to one or more grown child.Furthermore,very few Baoding par- ents(less than 3 percent)reported that they needed financial assistance but were not receiving it,or needed more than they were receiving.In other words,the relatively low proportions of grown children who are providing regular financial support to their parents is not a testimony to growing neg- lect of parents and decreased filial sentiments,but rather to the supplemen- tary and nonessential nature of child financial assistance for most parents. What is the state of relations between aging parents and their grown chil- dren in other realms besides finances?In our Baoding survey we included questions for both parents and children about many aspects of intergenera- tional relationships.The picture provided by these questions is quite consis- tent and positive.In general,parents and their grown children are embedded in a rich variety of mutual exchanges and frequent interactions.For example, while only 42 percent of our child respondents were living with a parent,an- other 3o percent claimed they were in daily contact with their parents,and many of the remaining 28 percent of grown children were in only slightly less frequent contact.Very few parents (only about 4 percent)were receiving physical help from any of their children with activities such as going to the bathroom or getting dressed,but about one third were receiving some regu- lar assistance with household chores.As with finances,very few parents re- ported that they needed assistance in these realms but were not receiving it from their children.And by percentages ranging from 75 percent to 95 per- cent,parents reported that their grown children listened to their advice, treated them with respect,and were filial or very filial toward them.More than 9s percent of parents reported they were satisfied or very satisfied with the emotional support they were receiving from their own children.(How- ever,60-65 percent of both parents and children we interviewed claimed that in Chinese society in general,respect for elders had suffered a decline.)(See Chapter8for a similar disparity between personal performance and percep- tion of others'in Korea.)Even discounting these figures somewhat for any