Many married families worldwide are always faced with the infamous question of which family to spend the holidays with depending on distances or time. For China, the conflict is quite different because of China’s one-child policy that was implemented by the government in 1978, a social policy that has created its own set of important societal changes in addition to what it was established for - “control over population and the strain on scare resources”.
The article, Dilemma for China’s one child generation: Where to spend New Year, focused on the up coming New Year celebrations - which are January 22 and 23 this year - and how these one-child married couples are faced with ‘tough decisions, sometimes painful arguments” with this family tradition. The article revealed that it’s not just the couples who are affected, but the elderly population (178 million) who are left alone with hardly any government aid, few nursing homes and no caretakers to care for them.
The public debate presently now is to do away with the on-child policy and simply allow couples to decide for themselves. This would alleviate some of the problems with the elderly. But the policy also has severe criticisms such as forced abortions or sterilization, killing of female infants, and basic violations of human rights.
This article makes it quite evident that the age old tradition of the Chinese family structure that has worked for so many years prior to the policy has been disturbed. The policy appears to be helping over population somewhat but offering challenges to the families involved especially the elderly who are valued members of the family structure as it is their teachings and presence that help move the next generation forward. That alone threatens the continuation of the Chinese society as it has worked for centuries.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/new-years-dilemma-for-chinas-one-child-generation/2012/01/14/gIQAIK8e7P_story.html
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