‘Six pairs of pockets’ give way to ‘six walking sticks’
Print Edition
The undivided love of her parents that Si Xiaoxue enjoyed in her childhood merely compounded the bitterness she felt when her father was diagnosed with cancer.
China’s one-child generation has no siblings from whom to seek help.
Si had to take leave from her work. When more leave was no longer an option, she worked all day and tended to her sick father at night.
“It’s a real struggle,” the 34-year-old said. “Sometimes I just want to quit my job, but now I need the money more than ever.”
Si pays monthly medical bills of more than 10,000 yuan (US$1,500).
For thousands of years, the Chinese have relied on their children to take care of them in their old age. However, the Chinese have traditionally had many children. For the one-child generation like Si, the emotional, physical and financial burden they are expected to bear is a punishingly heavy one.
To relieve that burden, legislation in some parts of the country now allows employees to take time off, with full pay, to care for their sick parents.
In Hunan Province, an only child is allowed to take up to 20 days off each year if his or her parents are over 60 and in hospital. Similar rules apply in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, where 15 days off are allowed. Salaries, allowances and bonuses may not be reduced during leave. The pattern is being repeated in Chongqing, Fujian, Guangdong, Hainan, Heilongjiang, Henan and Hubei.
After more than 30 years of the one-child policy, care for the elderly has become a very difficult issue for individual families and a social problem which the government must address.
There were about 230 million people aged 60 or over in China at the end of 2016, close to 17 percent of the population. More than half of them were “empty-nesters,” who live apart from their children.
When the one-child policy was in force, the “six pairs of pockets” syndrome was well documented. Each only child generally had two parents and four grandparents, all of whom put their hands in their pockets to feed, cloth, and often spoil, the child.
Today the pyramid is inverted and a single child may have six elderly relatives to support, the “six walking sticks” syndrome.
“The burden of elder care in a single-child family has become a widespread, and very serious, social problem in China,” said Li Zhiqiang, a legal expert at Lanzhou University. “Legislation which allows them to take time off work is just one way that the government can support them.”
However, the idea of paid elder-care leave has triggered heated debate with more concrete action needed. Chinese people are often very reluctant to take time off work and employers equally unwilling to allow them to.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
