The government of east China's Shandong
Province, to make more complete its regulations and legislation
on family issues, has turned its attention to the elderly. It has
studied extensively the issues of eldercare and how they are
handled in other provinces, as well as overseas. Now, a regulation
is being drafted that will provide detailed guidance on caring for
the province's senior citizens.
The Regulation on Family Support for the Elderly says that
support for senior citizens should be the joint responsibility of
family, individual, government and society. However, given
Shandong's still-immature development of private pensions, the
eldercare industry, and retirement allowances and endowment
insurance, families must take the leading role.
Wider social trends are having an impact on the lives of senior
citizens. Rapid urbanization means traditional extended-family
households are being replaced with nuclear families. Moreover,
increasing mobility does not often apply to the older generations:
the younger people move to cities to find better jobs, but their
parents and grandparents stay behind in the country. As a result,
the number of civil cases involving eldercare has been increasing
by two percentage points annually.
Huang Guanglei, a lawyer with the Gaoxin Law Firm in Shandong,
says that the existing Civil Law, Marriage Law, Law on Protection
of Rights and Interests of the Elderly and others are too vague to
be of practical use. For example, says Huang, there is no guidance
for determining support payments: departments handling such cases
have to interpret and apply the laws as best they can, while also
considering the local economic situation, the number of children,
their incomes and other factors.
Housing interests of the elderly are also a frequent issue, says
Huang, and the main reason is that there is no clearly spelled out
law concerning senior citizens' housing standards, repair
obligations or ownership rights.
The new regulation will provide detailed requirements concerning
the financial and emotional support that a family must give its
elders, as well as living care and special needs.
However, the regulation does acknowledge the changing social
environment. While a family cannot pay others to assume the
responsibility of caring for its elderly, it can assume the
responsibility itself by paying others to provide the care. Nursing
homes, nurses or assistants may be employed, thus lightening the
burden of the family's responsibility.
(China.org.cn by Zhang Tingting, May 18, 2004)