Thirteen years into the twentieth century, Lee Choo Neo wrote:
Although this was more than 100 years ago, the formula of dependency Lee portrayed was quintessentially Chinese, and it lasted throughout a Chinese female’s life. As a child, she was dependent on her father, as an adult she was dependent on her husband, and in old age she was dependent on her son (Blake 1994; Croll 1995; Deutsch 2006).As soon as she is thirteen or fourteen she has to undergo a course of training in cooking and sewing. These two are essential achievements without which she has scant hope of securing a good match…The Chinese girl is seldom provided with adequate education…. Parents regard it as a waste of money to educate their daughters who are supposed to be incapable of maintaining the family in time of need. (Cheng 1977, quoting The Life of a Chinese Girl in Singapore, by Lee Choo Neo, published in 1913)
Dependency was reinforced through Confucianism and filial piety, comprised of certain immutable elements: respect, gratitude and absolute obedience, unconditional care and support for parents, producing a male heir to continue the lineage, bringing honour to the family, and revering all elders and ancestors. Children owed the performance of these obligations to their father, with primary responsibility residing in the eldest son and the others in turn (Chan and Lim 2004).
A daughter’s filial duty was limited to nurturing an appropriate attitude and avoiding shame. Lacking formal education, these virtues were achieved through obedient dedication to and mastery of domestic skills, offered first to her family of origin, but more specifically to the family of her prospective husband (Holroyd and Mackenzie 1995). Once a girl ‘married out’, her husband’s family obligations became her own and she assumed the duty of perfectly executing them on his behalf. With no possibility for a different outcome, a daughter was thus conscripted to a life of subjugation, either to her husband’s family or if unmarried, to her own (Blake 1994; Croll 1995).
In this manner, for innumerable generations of Chinese families, filial piety has functioned as the standard for behaviour and ‘old age insurance’ for elderly Chinese. However, throughout the twentieth century and particularly since the Second World War , urbanisation, industrialisation, modernisation and Westernisation have reportedly mitigated the underpinnings of this once rigid system (Chan and Lee 1995; Mehta and Ko 2004; Wong 1986). If that is so, then one of the most salient features of the reconfigured Chinese ethos must be the changing roles and status of women (Holroyd 2001; Salaff 1976).
As it has been in other parts of the world, young urban Chinese women today have become increasingly well educated and employed, and many have achieved financial independence (Lee 2000). The synergistic relationship between these developments, together with delayed marriage and childbirth and lowered fertility have been widely observed. New economic value to the family has also earned daughters greater bargaining power, however, elevated status and growing self-sufficiency have not translated into a commensurate diminution of normative expectations regarding traditional gender roles. Even if they have been educated and work, most Chinese women still expect to be assigned the role of caregiver for children, husband, household and parents. Given the stress and curtailment of their freedom, engendered by juggling these multiple and often conflicting commitments, it is axiomatic that women today have a need to restructure the traditional caregiving model (Wong 2000). It is the goal of this book to explain this.
Aim of the Research
This book addresses the overarching question: Why are contemporary urban Chinese daughters still willing to undertake traditional parent caregiving activities considering their self-sufficient, modern lifestyles and attitudes and what are their coping strategies for accommodating the tension and conflict involved with discharging filial obligation?
Relevance of the Research
In 2010, Standard & Poor’s reported that, ‘no other force is likely to shape the future of economic health, public finances and policymaking as the irreversible rate at which the world’s population is ageing’ (Mrsnik 2010: 1). Due to declining fertility and increased longevity, Asia is ageing faster than any other region on earth. At the same time, the historical reliance on Confucian values and filial piety has contributed to a paucity of social welfare services throughout the region.1 Although pensions, health care and other benefits have been on the rise, they have remained largely inadequate to support populations with life expectancies beginning to reach or exceed 80 years (Du 2013; Pei and Tang 2012; Zhang et al. 2012). As a result, the onus for parental care is likely to remain predominately on the family,2 with the real burden of hands on care almost unquestionably and disproportionately imposed on women (Croll 2006).
This book is a glimpse into the lives of urban Chinese women living in three transitioning Asian societies: Hong Kong, Singapore and Kunming, Yunnan province, mainland China. These women explain how they have tried to operate within a deeply ingrained cultural ethos with thousands of years of history while living the ordinary lives of modern women. In transitioning societies, living up to the standards and expectations imposed by tradition, and ‘enforced’ by both others and self, can create tension and conflict, especially when juxtaposed with contemporary norms. Reflecting on this, many of the women interviewed for this book said they felt guilty much of the time.
The origins of this guilt have grown out of a rigid collective society in which individual needs and desires were sacrificed for the good of the whole. Prior research has shown that this traditional Chinese norm, while undergoing change, has not disappeared (Wong and Chau 2006). Thus, despite the...