DIMINISHING FILIAL PIETY AND ITS IMPACT ON LONG

Diminishing filial piety and its impact on long-term care policies
Filial Piety is a virtue regarded by Confucius as a way to ensure a peaceful family and society. Filial piety is loyalty to one’s family and country. Filial piety is the most important moral in Chinese culture. Showing love for the nation and selflessness in protecting and loving one’s family is ideal.
When developing and introducing policies to provide for the long-term care needs of the elderly, authorities must recognise the following:

1. The need for long-term care will rapidly increase, since populations in Asian Chinese communities are ageing even faster than those in western industrialised countries.
2. Private institutional care is often the only form of long-term care service available in Asian Chinese communities, with minimal governmental resources since it is generally held that the family should provide necessary support.
3. Home-based services are generally unavailable or in severely short supply, despite the fact that nearly all elderly people requiring long-term care remain in the community.
4. The influence exerted by filial piety is declining in Asian Chinese communities, though the value is still treasured as one that should regulate the behaviour of the children towards their parents.
5. Notwithstanding the diminishing role of the family, filial piety remains the most important source of support for elderly people requiring long-term care, and increasing state input is unlikely to be forthcoming in the near future.

Filial piety has lost its original meaning of absolute obedience to and sacrifice for parents. However, its ideological implication that the younger generation should respect the seniors and take care of their parents remains strong in rural China where support and services from outside the family are extremely limited. Elderly parents who had invested in their children received more financial support from their children than parents who had not. In other words, the observance of the value of filial piety is no longer absolute; it now also depends on other factors, like the level of support which they have received from their parents, particularly in education, and hence their ability to repay the latter when they become old.

Filial piety in Asian Chinese communities can serve as a basis for the formulation of new policies for supporting the elderly in need of long-term care. Neither a complete rejection nor a total acceptance of the value is appropriate. Filial piety has no doubt diminished in influence, but this does not necessarily imply that the value is no longer upheld; filial piety is in fact still observed, though not in the traditional ways. Any long-term care policy for elderly people in Asian Chinese communities must recognise the changes that have occurred in the practice of filial piety. The tenacity of filial piety implies that elderly people are still retaining a legitimate role, both within the family and the community. This should help facilitate the adoption of a community care approach that aims at combining the contributions of formal and informal sources of help and support. Finally, Chinese communities in Asia are undergoing rapid changes. Policies in support of the elderly must constantly be revised and kept in line with the changes that occur in the value of filial piety and its practices.