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Reading Changes In Family Support Through Regional Development In China, Ge Lin

Regional Research Institute Working Papers

This article examines the degree to which the traditional family support system would be reshaped by the modernization and industrialization from a geo-developmental perspective. In particular, we examine the impact of rapid social changes and economic developments on family support for older parents in contemporary urban China to assess trends that might lead to a different path from the western style of old-age support purported by modernization theory. Based on the 1992 Survey on China’s Support Systems for the Elderly, the study divides the sample from three levels of economic development, which in turn, are used as proxies for developmental …