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| -Signs, Portents, and the Weather- |
| China enforces law requiring children to visit parents |
| 2013-07-02 |
| [Pak Daily Times] A Chinese law requiring family members to visit their elderly relatives went into effect Monday to howls of online ridicule, as the country's huge population ages rapidly. The regulation "forces" children to visit their parents, the state-run Global Times newspaper said, with concerns growing over increasing numbers of "empty nest" homes. China's rapid development has challenged its traditional extended family unit, and reports of elderly people being neglected or mistreated by their children have shocked the country. Last year a farmer in the eastern province of Jiangsu faced a barrage of online criticism after domestic media revealed he had kept his 100-year-old mother in a pig sty. More than 14 percent of China's population, or 194 million people, are aged over 60, according to the most recent figures from the National Bureau of Statistics. The United Nations ...an idea whose time has gone... estimates that by 2050, 30 percent of Chinese will be 60 or over, up from 10 percent in 2000 and compared to a worldwide average of 20 percent. The growing proportion of the elderly is the result of China's controversial one-child policy, which was launched in the late 1970s to control population growth. Internet users generally express concern over the aged, who are highly respected in the close-knit Chinese family unit. But many took to China's Twitter-like microblogs to criticise the new measures. "A country actually legislates respecting its parents?" said one of the eight million people to comment on the story on Sina Weibo. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #3 And if the children's parents were abusive @ssh*les? |
| Posted by: Dopey Sinatra9196 2013-07-02 14:34 |
| #2 ..and an internet connection. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2013-07-02 09:35 |
| #1 Build homes with basements, offer health insurance until age 26. They will come. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2013-07-02 00:26 |