Intergenerational Transmission of Family Property and Family Management in Urban China

Abstract

This article applies Myron Cohen's studies of family division and family management in rural China to an examination of how working class families in urban China cope with the hardships created by industrial transition and housing reform. Senior parents work with their adult children; parental authority retains a critical role. By flexibly shifting powerful domestic roles, senior women, in particular, work with their adult sons in order to transmit the domestic resources necessary to secure the filial services to which they feel entitled. In China's fast-changing economic environment, fuelled by the modernization process, the dynamics of family culture still present effective tools and strategies for individual citizens seeking to protect and advance their own interests.When my fieldwork in China was nearly completed, I paid a farewell visit to Mrs Guan, a retired worker and widow whom I had interviewed at length throughout the summer of 2008. She found my imminent departure distressing. For years, she had no one to talk to about the concerns that were uppermost in her mind: issues related to her late husband (who had suffered from cancer), her divorced son and her grandson. She confided that her greatest fear was not of financial insecurity but of loneliness. Her only child, the son who had divorced his wife, came to visit her only once a year at Chinese New Year, and her ex-daughter-in-law had been awarded custody of her grandson, whom she had not seen for two years. When I asked whether she had the financial resources necessary to move to a nursing home should that become necessary, she practically dragged my research assistant and me into her two-bedroom home. There, she unfolded a floor plan of a

The Rise of Maternal Grandmother Child Care in Urban Chinese Families

“…Such cross-generational cooperation and bilateral exchange of resources are often found between senior parents and their adult children in urban Chinese families as they cope with China's massive and large-scale social and economic reorganization (F. Chen et al, 2011;Wang, 2010;Whyte, 2005;Yan, 2003). Whyte (2003) demonstrated how the senior and younger generations of urban working-class families in Baoding worked together as a corporate unit to survive the large-scale lay-offs, housing shortages, high costs of living, and weakened welfare system that began in the 1990s.…”

“…Whyte (2003) demonstrated how the senior and younger generations of urban working-class families in Baoding worked together as a corporate unit to survive the large-scale lay-offs, housing shortages, high costs of living, and weakened welfare system that began in the 1990s. The cross-generational cooperation includes parents passing down their jobs to the adult children, providing housing or making contributions to children's homeownership as well as parents' and adult children's mutual assistance with living expense, domestic chores, and care (Wang, 2010;Whyte, 2003Whyte, , 2005. The use of both maternal and paternal grandmothers' labor and resources for child-care support may represent another flexibility strategy that urban Chinese families adopt to work toward the collective goal of raising the well-rounded third generation who bears the hope of the entire family.…”

“…Chen, 1985;F. Chen et al, 2011;Wang, 2010;Whyte, 1997Whyte, , 2005. However, the configuration of intergenerational exchange of resources has transformed from a patrilineal and patrilateral configuration to a bilineal and bilateral configuration in part because the influence of gender on the foundation for intergenerational interaction lessened while practicality, convenience, and interpersonal dynamics became more important factors.…”

Evolving Eldercare in Contemporary China

“…Finally, in urban China exchanging property for children's caregiving represents an emerging trend used by elders to ensure that they receiving family caregiving (Wang 2010 ); this contrasts with fi lial piety (Cong and Silverstein 2011 ). The acceptance of property by children becomes an implicit agreement and commitment between generations.…”

“…This refl ects how fi lial piety in urban China may be evolving to favor reducing children's caregiving burden (Wang 2010 ). Under-accommodated communication could also be interpreted as dismissive and condescending.…”