| In Dashantou village, which is in the south of Henan Province in China, many peoplehave been affected by the idea of Having more children means having more happiness.This kind of situation has already changed people`s birth preference, and is causing aserious problem of the effect of the Family Planning Policy in China. People there prefer tohave more children because of the Chinese tradition that children are responsible to supporttheir parents when their parents grow old, which, however, has been proved no longerbinding upon children like before nowadays. The rural inter-generational relationshipsthere have been changed. Inter-generational exploitation becomes common. The securityfunction from family members has been weakened, and that makes the problems of thesecurity function from society and community become increasingly apparent. This paper isbased on a survey of the village, and tries to present the facts of the inter-generationalrelationships and the old-age security there. It also tries to analyze the reasons why thefacts have happened and how, and to give suggestions on it.This paper argues that the idea of Having more children means having morehappiness leads people in the village prefer to have not only boys, but also girls. In orderto achieve this goal, many people choose to break the Family Planning Policy and givebirth to more babies. But the birthing efforts did not improve the living conditions of theold. Having more children hardly means having more happiness. Sometimes it meansbecoming more difficult. The imbalance of the inter-generational relationships plays animportant role. So this paper gives suggestions on this problem, based on the analysis of thereasons of the imbalance. It comes to the conclusion that the future of the old-age securityin rural China relies on the security function from family. So, in order to improve the livingconditions of the old, it is the most important to change the situation of theinter-generational relationships. |
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