How Parents Influence the Life Plans of Graduating Chinese University Students

Bibliographic Data

ID2985697
AuthorsFrancine M Deutsch (Mount Holyoke College, corresponding author)
Year2004
Volume35
Issue3
Pages393-421
Publication date2004-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Comparative Family Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0047-2328 • E-ISSN: 1929-9850
PublisherUniversity of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.3138/jcfs.35.3.393
OpenAlexW2601504976
LanguageEN
Citations received12
References cited9

Between November and March of their senior year, eighty-four male and female graduating students at a Chinese University were interviewed about their proposed post-graduate plans and their parents' reactions to them. In May or June of the same year, they reported on the choices they had actually made and their parents' influence on those choices. Students pursued jobs, further study in China, or study in foreign countries. A majority of jobseekers had conflicts with parents, either over the type of job they sought or its distance from home. Ultimately, more than half of the students whose preferences differed from their parents acquiesced to their parents' wishes. As compared to students with siblings, however, only children were more likely to resist and follow their own inclinations. The results were discussed both in terms of the persistence of norms of filial piety and familism among educated youth, and the increasing divergence of the life course in a rapidly modernizing, industrializing, and urbanizing China

China · Filial piety · Political science · Sociology · Cultural Differences and Values · Demography · Gender Studies · Intergenerational Family Dynamics and Caregiving · International Student and Expatriate Challenges · Psychology · Social Psychology

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