A new law went into effect in Chine yesterday requiring adults to visit their grandparents once in a while,or otherwise face a lawsuit. It's purpose is “to protect the lawful rights and interests of parents aged 60 and older, and to carry on the Chinese virtue of filial piety,” states the China Daily paper. Built on the foundation of familial duty and having had the One Child Policyfor decades, this new law is hardly anything strange to China's citizens.
This Law of Protection of Rights and Interests of the Aged prohibits the “discrimination, insult, ill-treatment and abandonment” and aims to raise awareness to the emotional needs of the increasing 187 million elders in the country. Employers are now required to give their workers time-off in order to allow them to fulfill these requirements. One flaw in the legislation, as pointed out by Bloomberg News, is that there is no specification of how frequent these visits should be but grandparents can file a lawsuit if their children do no visit often.
China's success with its One Child Policy, which limits families to having one child to help slow down the rapid increase in population, is one the reasons lawmakers decided to enact this new elder act. James Liang, a professor at the Stanford School of Business and Peking University, wrote last year in Caixin Magazine that he believes China is in danger of becoming a graying society with a shrinking population of young people who won't be enough to carry the economy. According to the China National Committee on Aging, the number of citizens over 60 in China is expected to increase to 487 million by 2053, due to increased life expectancy.
But will this new legislation have any success? Zhang Ye, a 36-year-old university lecturer from eastern Jiangsu Province, told Global and Mail law was “unreasonable” and put too much pressure on people who migrate away from home in search of work or independence.
She also states in Global and Mail, “For young people who are abroad or work really far away from their parents, it is just too hard and too expensive to visit their parents,” she said. “I often go to visit my parents and call them ... (but) if a young person doesn’t want to, I doubt such a law will work.”