Filial Piety by Contract? The Emergence, Implementation, and Implications of the "Family Support Agreement" in China

Abstract

China has the largest aging population in the world today. Despite the Chinese tradition of filial piety, economic, social, cultural, and familial changes have made it increasingly difficult for older Chinese to receive support from adult children. To ensure parental support, the Family Support Agreement (FSA) emerged from a local community in the mid-1980s. Since then, the FSA has been promoted and monitored by the government. By the end of 2005, FSAs had been signed by more than 13 million rural families across China and is now finding its way into cities. A voluntary contract between older parents and adult children concerning parental provisions, the FSA represents an innovation to help meet the challenge of providing elder support. Although the FSA's moral persuasion is based on filial piety, violations of the FSA are subject to penalties by law. As the first systematic and comprehensive exploratory study on the FSA, this article examines (a) the FSA's emergence, content, legal foundation, and implementation; (b) the role of the government and the legal system in promoting or monitoring FSAs; (c) the FSA's strengths, limitations, and challenges; (d) the FSA's implications in light of Chinese history, intergenerational contract, filial piety, and intergenerational relations; and (e) the future of the FSA as a social policy.