The Rural Old-housing Pension:the Sociological Analysis Of A Way Of Pension

Due to its special historical and social background, the rural supporting problem has become a serious social problem in China, and restricts the building of a new countryside. Its solution not only directly affects the life stability for rural old people, but also affects the process of china’s aging work. There are tens of thousands of countrysides in China, each one may not take the same kind of old-age supporting mode, different regions or different countries need to explore respective ways. The Rural Old-housing Pension is a way of supporting on the basis of historical culture and local actual conditions.The Rural Old-housing is the houses which the aged live in alone after their children marriage, and the Rural Old-housing Pension refers that the children bear the obligations to support their old parents, provide economic support, life care and spiritual comfort for the aged although the old parents do not live with their married children. Thanks to the close living distance, old parents keep close contact with their married children in the life and emotion. According to the study,this pension first appeared in the period of implementing a household responsibility system in village B, and popular in the late of1980s, although it merely has a history of thirty to forty years, which has been generally accepted by the local villagers. In village B, the aged will live alone after their children’s marriages are taken for granted, otherwise it is considered to be an unwise behavior. There is such kind of ideas among villagers is on one hand to maintain a good relationship between generations, on the other hand is also related to the local structure of a family. The family size of four generations and one-child policy that fails to be implemented strictly, lead to the family size in village B pretty large, and this further determines the elderly parents may not live together with young couples. Thus, the residential distance will inevitably affect the relationship between old parents and married children. According to the relevant theory of sociology, the distance will affect interpersonal relationship, the farther the distance between people, the less the interaction among people will be, and the interpersonal relations will also become rather cold-hearted. In reality, however, the intergenerational relation has not become difference as the living distance is away in village B, instead the existence of a distance has improved the relations between generations. Therefore, the focus of this paper is:how the old-housing is to improve intergenerational tensions, what effects it brings to the old and the young, as well as what kind of challenges it is going to confront with the development of urbanization.Through in-depth investigation and study, this paper argues that the residential distance between old parents and married sons has reduced the probability of the friction and avoided conflicts. At the same time,"A bowl of soup is not a cold distance" and the filial culture ensure an effective interaction. This not only improves intergenerational relationship, but also provides certain social intercourse space and economic independence for the aged. Furthermore, it is beneficial to the elderly gathering economic resources for self-supporting, improving their supporting quality. But the living distance has also brought in some negative effects, such as the elderly’s safety problems and life care for very elderly people, and with the development of urbanization and rural economy, living distance between young couples and elderly parents is widening further, which has exceeded the scope of "a bowl of soup is not cold distance", hinders intergenerational exchanges. To seek the solution of these problems, as it is becoming the challenge that Rural Old-housing Pension has to face, in order to continue to play its role.