Chinese Families and the Four Modernizations

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Abstract
Since 1978 the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has urged the people of China to "work confidently, devotedly, and with one mind for the realization of the splendid cause of the four modernizations." Households in China are a basic unit of consumption and a primary locus of savings. They also fulfill key welfare functions: providing daily care of small children and the disabled. In 1949 families throughout China were under siege. If the Chinese Communists had in fact intended to destroy the multigeneration Confucian household as is sometimes alleged, their task would have been easy. A sustained ideological attack against Confucian ideals of family authority further weakened the urban family structure. Between 1949 and 1959 the CCP transformed the Chinese economy. The revival of rural families under socialism can be attributed to four elements of CCP economic development policy. Families do not provide unmitigated support for the four modernizations, however, for they may pose obstacles particularly in the long term.

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