Introduction

Marriage has become an old-fashioned life

FAMILY DEVELOPMENT AND

CHANGES IN HONG KONG

choice? Or it remains socially desirable?

Marriage and family trends in the 20th Century

GESC2320 Gender and Family: a Global

Perspective

Increasing number of singleton

Delayed marriage, remain singlehood

Voluntary: cool,
VS involuntary singlehood - ,

Source: Women and men in HK: Key Statistics 2012

The practice of homogamy: the tendency of people who have

similar characteristics to marry one another.
Class background matters

Later marriages

Total fertility rates, 1960 2006

6

Deferred age of marriage

Median age at first marriage
33
32
31
30
29
Age

28
27

US: (mean age)

1970: F:21.3; M:23.4
1980: F:22.1; M:24.7
1990: F:23.9; M:26.1
2000: F:25.1; M:26.8
2010: F:26.1; M:28.2

UK: (mean age)

1980: F:23; M:25.3
1990: F:25.2; M:27.2
2000: F:28.2; M:30.5

Hong Kong
France
Germany
Japan
Singapore
UK

26
25
24
23
22
F
M

1971
22.9
27.8

1976
23.3
26.8

1981
23.9
27

1986
25.3
28

1991
26.2
29.1

1996
26.9
30

2001
27.5
30.2

2006
28.2
31.2

2011
28.9
31.2

Year various years

Source: Census reports,

Consequences: prolong period of courtship; increasing risk of having

multiple courting partners; sometimes anxiety follows

1
0
1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005

Source: World Development Indicators 2010, World Bank

Decreasing household size

Significant increment in divorce

Average number of children (aged under 15) per

Number of divorces
1981: 2,062
1991: 6,295
2001: 13,425
2011: 19,597 (850%)

household

1.8 in 1961
0.4 in 2006

Average household size

4.5 persons in 1971
The Family Planning
3.0 persons in 2000
Association of Hong
2.9 persons in 2010
Kong
Households with more than 4 persons

HK Family Welfare
Society

Implications: an easy come, easy go attitude?!

49% in 1966
34% in 2010

Single Parents Family

10

The Transformation of Marriage

Other observed changes
Cohabitation
LAT
Re-marriage
Same-sex partnership
De-naturalization of reproduction
Reproductive technology

Source: Women and Men in Hong Kong Key Statistics 2012 Edition p.48
Single parents: mom/dad who are never married, widowed, divorced or separated &
living with child(ren) aged under 18.

Different outcomes towards M & F

11

Introduction

Class discussion

Firstly, it is very often we have arrived at some kind of

1. Family development in the post-war peiod:

The lost of family
F.M. Wong3 stages of family development(1975)

conclusion prematurely
Are marriage and family really declining? If so, why?
What are the critical factors that contribute to observed changes?
In what ways are the present conditions of marriage and family

different from those in the old days?

2. Is family institution in decline?

Individualized marriage and family ( 2001)

Deinstitutionalization of marriage (Cherlin 2004)
The first phase: Institutional marriage ()
Marriage is a fundamental unit for societys stability

The second phase: Companionate marriage ()

Industrialization and urbanization

The third phase: Individualized marriage ()

Post-industrial society and individualization

14

13

Deinstitutionalization of marriage

The Lost of Family Thesis

(Cherlin 2004)

Industrialization took off in the 1950s in HK:

Immigration influx
Change of global community chain

The first phase: Institutional marriage (Before 1950 in U.S.)

Marriage as a social institution: norms, values, laws
Effective formal and informal sanctions
Predictable marital behaviors: Obligations & claims

Consequences: cultural changes

Willing to make personal sacrifices to fulfill functions of a marriage

Secularization
Individual freedom
The free will ()
Expressive individualism

Committed to life long relationship

Marital stability and cohesive family

Geographic mobility
More open political participation
Womens economic role
The decline of family institution and loosen family

relationship resulted

15

The second phase:

Companionate marriage (1950s in U.S.)

What about the case in HK?

Family changes in the post-war Hong Kong

The Modern Family

Major references:
Wong, F.M. 1972. Modern ideology, industrialization and
conjugalism: The case of Hong Kong. International Journal of
Sociology of the Family 2: 139-150.
1975 Industrialization and family structure in Hong Kong. Journal
of Marriage and the Family 37:985-1000.

Marital success is defined by emotional satisfaction

Spouse as friend and lover

Satisfaction from participation in a marriage-based nuclear family

Egalitarian partnership > patriarchal relationships

It was suggested that family form changed from extended family to

nuclear family
Led to the changing functions of family

Family form, size, and functions are related to other

Observed marital norms, e.g. decision making

aspects of the society

Gendered division of labor

Industrial development leads to the dominance of nuclear

Being good providers, good homemakers, and responsible parents

family despite the traditional family values favor (1) more

children and (2) married children living with parents

Marriage remained the only legitimate way to have a sexual

relationship and to raise children

18

Wong F.M.: Neclearazation of family

(Wong 1975)
3 stages of family development

Household composition, 1976 - 2006

A.
B.

(Temporary, broken extended family) 1841-1941

Two-generations (vertical and horizontal)
Multi-functional
Seniority, patriarchal

(Settled stem family) 1945-1955

(Small nuclear family)1956-1971

C.
D.
E.
F.
B.

Two generations (vertical), couple-centered

Less functional
Equal participation, negotiation and compromise

C.
D.

17

1 person
1 family (nuclear
family)
Extended families
Multigeneration
Same generation
2 or more families
Nonfamily household

1976 1981 1986 1991 1996 2001 2006

14.8 15.2 12.9 14.8 14.9 15.6 16.5
60.2

54.4

59.2

61.6

63.6

66.2

67.0

9.4
2.0
6.0
7.6

13.6
2.4
6.3
8.1

11.9
2.1
6.2
6.9

10.7
1.8
4.8
6.3

9.9
1.2
4.8
5.5

8.5
0.9
3.9
4.9

7.4
0.7
3.1
5.2

One unextended nuclear family household

Husband and wife, with or without their never married child(ren),
or
At least one parent with one ore more never married children
One vertically extended nuclear family household
Related persons of different generations living with nuclear family
One horizontally extended nuclear family household
Related persons of same generations as members of the nuclear family

Impacts of industrialization to family in HK

Criticisms and response ( 1989)

Different living arrangement: contacts among kin

Social mobility: hierarchical relationship in kin group

Extended family has not been the prevailing family form

Class difference

Partial family functions were outsourced

Public policy promoted vertical extended family

Stress on personal achievement & professionalization of

Equal family relationships did not follow at once

Cultural lag: traditional family norms and values

work: guanxi

maintained
Lee Ming-kwan (modified

Structurally isolated nuclear family

Family respond to structural changes passively
Industrialization isolated family lost of family functions

extended family)
Stable family network and contact, traditional family values remain

practicing

Rosen (1973): family life cycle and living arrangement

19

20

21

The third phase: Individualized marriage

(1960s & after)

22

The individualization thesis

Ulrich Beck on risk society and individualization
Risk Society was published in 1986 shortly after the
Chernobyl nuclear disaster
Pre-modernity 1) First modernity 2) second (high)
modernity

Marriages dominance began to diminish

Diversified family patterns
Marital norms are open to interpretation
Uncertainties
Negotiations
Marital expectation: from role to self (Cherlin 2004:852)
Develop a fulfilling, independent self instead of merely sacrificing
oneself to ones partner
More flexible marital roles between the partners
Communication and openness in confronting problems

1) Feudal/agricultural society industrial society

Class system, gender inequality have carried forward to first

modernity

He argues that we are moving to 2) a new stage of modernity

beyond its classical industrial design

Pre-industrial: risk and danger beyond human control

Industrial: Applying technology; estimation of risk
Modernization is becoming reflexive the capacity of an individual

agent recognize the impact of socialization on his/her life choice and

social positioning

23

24

Fundamental Changes?!

Fundamental Changes?

Risk as a global issue

Individualization: disembedding without reembedding

Because old institutions are collapsing, the individuals lives are no
longer dependent on the existing institutions (nor will they be
guided by them)
The so-called standard biography is becoming obsolete
Individuals are left on their own: new life project
Anthony Giddens and Ulrich Beck: you have no choice but to
choose, do-it-yourself life project
Not articulated by traditional political organizations (e.g., political
parties)
A new life politics

Its distribution is not straightly speaking class-based

Concomitantly, a fundamental change in the relationship

between society and individual

Old institutions (e.g., class, family, etc.) are collapsing
A process of individualization

Detraditionalization
Emancipation

25

26

The normal chaos of love

(Beck & Beck-Gernsheim 1995)

what is now most desired is most

tenuous. Why?

The condition/content of the intimate relations:

the more individual we become, the more we need a significant

This increased freedom, however, comes at the cost of anxiety as

individual has to find biographical solutions to systemic conditions.

Relation between education, work and intimate relationships
A new life view

Ones fate is seen as the outcome of ones personal decisions even

though social-structural factors play a role in shaping ones life

course in manners that are not fully under control of the individual.
The freedom to make ones life success is offered, not guaranteed.

other with whom to share the hopes and fears, gains and losses
experienced though release from traditional norms (Beck & BeckGernsheim 1995:2).
I love you, but
Since romantic love is desirable yet unstable, contemporary
intimacy is characterized by a paradoxical tendency that on the one
hand people hope for fusion and on the other hand, they are driven
by individualism and the desire for self-actualization.
It leads one to keep striving for security in such ambivalence and
conflict relationships.

27

28

Beck & Gernsheim , implications

Marriage and family in the postindustrialized HK society

This intrinsically unstable intimate relation leads to an increasing

Knowledge-based, capitalism, more open in democratic

number of break-up, divorce and remarriage

Looping (serial monogamy)
Elective affinities: Fluid family boundary
Both men and women have to do more planning and negotiation, to
put up a case for their preferences, to find agreement and
compromise
But more of the pressure rests on women:

system and religious

Childrens increasing education
Social mobility

Different social context

for the two generations

Geographical mobility driven by work

Normative marriage and family became ones life choice

rather ones destiny

Married women with children

Women who decided to remain single, or to divorce, although education and

occupational independence allow them to do so, the choice was not easy

she focused more on the possibilities than on the difficulties

, 2000-10

Marriage and family institution is decline?

Number of Marriage Registration, First Marriage and Remarriage

29

Marital satisfaction

Koo & Wong 2009: family survey

Individualization does not mean selfish, but

Respondents level of marital satisfaction (%)

Satisfaction

Female

Male

Total

Very dissatisfactory

0.2

0.2

0.2

Dissatisfactory

1.1

1.1

1.1

Average

11.4

9.8

10.6

Satisfactory

75.6

76.3

76.0

Very satisfactory

11.6

12.8

12.2

2977

2990

5967

we are forced to assume responsibilities for our lives,

and where sustaining long term commitments is becoming

more difficult than ever. (p.22)
In family, people are making relational choice or contextual

choice instead of free choice

My freedom is bound up by your freedom

obligation ------- individual choice

Individualization: reworking relationships in a more flexible

and contingent manner (p.21)

Reworking does not necessarily mean the erosion of

family mutuality or the discrediting of family values (p.21)

Source: Ting Kwok Fai & Tso Ho Yee Vienne (2014), Family Survey,
Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies (upcoming)

33

34

Koo & Wong 2009: family survey

Koo & Wong 2009: family survey

Interaction with relatives (p.33)

Q: Children have the responsibility to give parents financial support

In the past year, you have

Kept close contact with relatives, such as by visits

80

Spent holidays with relatives

84

Celebrated the New Year with relatives

89

Had more than 5 gatherings with relatives

68

Worshiped ancestors with relatives

70

No age or educational difference

Whether parents are still alive is an important factor to keep

contact with the extended families

Peoples interactions with relatives exactly reflect their

interactions with their parents

(Ref: Koo, C. H. A. and W. P. T. Wong (2009). "Family in Flux:
Benchmarking Family Changes in Hong Kong." Social
Transformations in Chinese Societies 4: 17-56.)

Extra readings
Beck, U. 1992. Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. London ; Newbury

Park, Calif.: Sage Publications.

Beck, U. and Beck-Gernsheim, E. 1995. The Normal Chaos of Love.

Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

Koo, C.H.A. and Wong, W.P.T. 2009. 'Family in Flux: Benchmarking Family

Changes in Hong Kong'. Social Transformations in Chinese Societies 4: 1756.

Lee, M. K. (1995). The Family Way. Indicators of Social Development: Hong

Kong 1993. Ming Kwan Lee, Po San Shirley Wan and Siu Lun Wong. Hong
Kong, Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, The Chinese University of
Hong Kong, 1-20.

Lee, M. K. and S. H. Lu (1997). The Marriage Institution in Decline? Indicator

s of Social Development: Hong Kong 1995. S. K. Lau, M. K. Lee and P. S. Wa

n. Hong Kong, Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, The Chinese Univ
ersity of Hong Kong: 183-202.

Wong, F. M. (1975). "Industrialization and Family Structure in Hong Kong."

Journal of Marriage and the Family 37: 985-1000.

Agree
Not agree

72

1427

28

569

100

1996

Q: Do you support your parents financially?

Yes
No

78

1008

22

279

100

1827