The family care of Chinese old people : a study of Chinese communities in London.

This research examines the financial relationships between
Chinese older people and their family, the living arrangements of
older people, the needs for care and the provision of care in
Hong Kong as well as in London. It points out the myth of the
traditional Chinese extended family which existed only among the
gentry and the elites and the mistake which relates the provision
of care to the existence and prevalence of the Chinese extended
family. It is argued that westernisation and industrialisation
have not washed away the caring capacity of the Chinese family.
The research showed that Chinese old people in the two
places maintained an active financial relationship with their
children, and the majority still lived with their families, which
reflected not so much an absence of alternative but a matter of
preference. Help in such aspects as personal care, household
maintenance and social survival continued to be provided by the
family.
However, the research also showed that a new pattern of
relationships between Chinese old people and their children and
grandchildren have emerged, and a unique pattern in the division
of labour in care within the family has also been developed.
It is argued that the basis of care in the Chinese context
has undergone reconstruction. Five interlinked factors are
important the reciprocal contributions of the Chinese old
people and the family members; the affective compatibility
between the old people and the helpers; the obligatory
compatibility between the two parties; and the sanction of
normative expectations. All these conditions are subject to the
intervention of state policies.
The reconstruction of the basis of care showed that the
classical Chinese thesis which suggested that being old must be
respected could no longer be upheld. Instead, the state has,
through various social policies, shaped and sustain the help
seeking and provision of the old people and their families.