Abstract:

While research on filial piety often emphasizes the unidirectional relationship from children to parents, intergenerational ties are inherently bidirectional. Changes in parental recognition of filial piety ethics not only illuminate their role expectations of their children but also serves as an important entry point for understanding the overall changes in traditional Chinese filial piety. This study proposes a family analysis framework that incorporates gender roles to explore the micro-foundation and social context underpinning the transformation of filial piety in China. Drawing on data from the 2014 China Family Panel Studies(CFPS), we leverage the exogenous variation in firstborn gender to identify its causal effects on parental binary filial piety recognition. On average, parents of daughters exhibit weaker endorsement of authoritarian filial piety yet show stronger recognition of reciprocal filial piety compared to parents of sons. This pattern arises from two key mechanisms. First, daughters' post-marital patrilocal residence disrupts traditional intergenerational co-residence arrangements, thereby diminishing parental adherence to authoritarian filial piety norms. Second, adult daughters are more likely to provide caregiving support during their parents'illnesses, fulfilling emotional expectations for affection and fostering greater parental recognition of reciprocal filial piety. Additionally, the declining fertility rates over the past four decades have brought about a significant shift in the gender composition of children, with families only having daughters becoming increasingly more common. Given that parents with only daughters exhibit lower recognition of authoritarian filial piety, this helps explain why there has been a decline in societal recognition of traditional filial piety ethics. By analyzing the changes in parental role expectations and ethical recognition, this study not only sheds light on the mechanisms driving the transformation and development of traditional Chinese culture but also offers a deeper understanding of the reconstruction of family ethics in the context of fertility transition.

Key words: transformation of filial piety, dual filial piety model, children's gender, role expectation, fertility transition