College of Social Work, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208, USA.
Gerontologist. 2011 Feb;51(1):3-16. doi: 10.1093/geront/gnq059. Epub 2010 Aug 9.
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.
中国是当今世界上老龄化人口最多的国家。尽管中国有孝顺的传统，但经济、社会、文化和家庭的变化使得中国老年人越来越难以从成年子女那里获得支持。为了确保父母得到支持，家庭支持协议（FSA）从 20 世纪 80 年代中期的一个当地社区中产生。自那时以来，政府一直在推动和监测该协议。到 2005 年底，中国已有超过 1300 万个农村家庭签署了 FSA，现在该协议正在向城市推广。作为一份关于父母赡养规定的老年父母和成年子女之间的自愿合同，FSA 是帮助应对提供老年支持挑战的一项创新。尽管 FSA 的道德劝说基于孝道，但违反 FSA 将受到法律的处罚。作为对 FSA 的首次系统和全面探索性研究，本文考察了：（a）FSA 的出现、内容、法律基础和实施；（b）政府和法律体系在促进或监测 FSA 方面的作用；（c）FSA 的优势、局限性和挑战；（d）FSA 在中国历史、代际契约、孝道和代际关系方面的意义；（e）FSA 作为社会政策的未来。
