Fewer and fewer children are supporting their elderly parents nowadays in China. Instead of children looking after their parents, the traditional practice has been turned around, with the elderly contributing to their children’s households through the caring of grandchildren, housework, and even financial support, reports Shanghaiist.
According to China Daily, the elderly affairs research center of the Guangdong Academy of Social Sciences recently carried out an extensive study. More than 10 percent of the grown-up children in the study receive financial support from their elderly parents per month, while a third of them receive money occasionally.
Despite the parents’ generous offers of time, devotion, and even money to their children (and grandchildren), they are not getting much in return. Most of the elderly, more than 75 percent in fact, reported feeling lonely even when some of them live with their children. More than anything, they crave for more emotional and spiritual connection to their children.
Sadly, with the erosion of traditional values, China’s senior population, projected to reach 200 million by 2015, is gradually becoming a forgotten group while the younger generations go about their busy lives, leaving little time to care for the physical and mental wellbeing of their elderly parents and grandparents.
