The following translation and commentary comes to Danwei via Jonathan Rechtman, a freelance writer based in Dalian. His writings on China, language, life, and philosophy can be found at The Art of Living.
Finance and Family Values
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Kid
By Jonathan Rechtman
Dr. Phil, you're fired....we're calling an accountant. According to a recent interview in Southern Weekly, newly available financial planning tools are changing the way Chinese parents love their children.
Chen Zhiwu—a finance professor at Yale—says the availability of retirement plans means parents no longer depend on their children to provide for them in old age, and are becoming more sentimental as a result.
When parents stop viewing their children as social security, as a form of investment, they don't have to worry so much....After these parents buy insurance, retirement plans, etc, they don't need to rely on their children economically, and can focus their relationship on emotional communication.
What we're talking about here is a real shift in family values—exactly what kind of value do children represent to their parents? According to Chen, that value is becoming less about economic security and more about fuzzy lovey feelings.
Skeptical? Chen has the research on tap:
[We] conducted two questionnaire surveys. Respondents were asked: "Why do you want to have children?" and could choose from a number of answer choices. One answer was "to care for me in old age," another was "because I like kids/affection," another was "to carry on the family heritage," etc. We discovered that...aside from location [rural versus urban], the second most important factor was whether or not the respondent had purchased insurance or used any other market-based financial tools to provide for retirement. Respondents who had purchased insurance or had retirement plans or investment funds were more likely to respond "I want to have children out of love/affection," and less likely to respond "to take care of me in old age." In comparison, household income did not have a large influence on the motivation for having children. The use of modern financial products was a much more decisive factor, which was something we didn't expect.
Get it? Love has nothing to do with how much money you make...it's all about your 401(k).
But the fun doesn't stop there. Financial tools not only affect why parents have kids, but how they interact with them as well. Retirement plans also seem to be punching a few more nails into the coffin for Confucianism.
When you look at the style of communication between parents and children in Shanghai, Beijing, these big cities, you're going to find...it's not a top-down, "I give the orders" kind of relationship. On the contrary, you'll find more parents are using a very "equal" method of communicating with their children, trying to create a heart-to-heart dialogue. This obviously runs contrary to the Confucian hierarchical system, is essentially contrary to Confucian traditions.
Chen goes on to note several other side effects: less stifling of children's individuality, greater self-dependence for both parents and children, a broadening of people’s economic spheres, the wonders go on and on.
The bottom line is: more freedom.
This, essentially, is what Chen's work is focused on: how finance and the market economy is making Chinese people freer. Free enterprise, free trade, and yes: freedom from Mom and Dad.
The most important role being played by financial markets is their ability to liberate individuals from their reliance on authoritative organizations, whether they are households, churches, or governments. They no longer have to be subordinate to these power structures to survive.
If this sounds too risqué, it can easily be framed in much more politically correct terms.
Freedom + Love = Harmonious Society?
Ahh, the beauty of finance in China.
Links and Sources
This article is from Danwei.org
