Kai-man Kwan
I
thoroughly enjoy Professor Brenda Almond’s paper on “CONFLICTING IDEOLOGIES OF
THE FAMILY: IS THE FAMILY JUST A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT?” The difficulty for me as a
respondent is to find a single statement to disagree, and in the end I fail to
do so. So in this response, I mainly elaborate some central themes of her paper
from my perspective, and place the discussion in our context, the HK society.
The
Fragmenting HK Family
Prof.
Almond points out that the “traditional family is fragmenting in many parts of
the world.” Unfortunately, HK is following closely the development of the Western
societies in this aspect. Moreover, it seems to have “achieved” in several
decades what takes the West several centuries to “achieve.”
Some
data about the HK family. Fewer & fewer people get marry. In 1990, the number of marriages is 47,168, but
the figure drops to 31,287 in 1999, a decrease by about one-third in just a decade. Divorce
statistics continue to rise, more than five-fold in last two decades. The number of divorce cases in 1990 is 5,551
but in 2001 it has reached 13,488. The divorce rate amounts to 42.2%. In this
aspect, as in many other aspects, HK has caught up with the most modernized
societies!
Naturally,
the number of single parent household & the number of births outside
wedlock have risen dramatically. The problem of family violence has also
worsened - from 1997 to 2001, the number of cases has almost doubled (rising
from 1200 to 2370). The reproductive rate in HK is almost one of the lowest
among the whole world, less than one
child per couple. The government is now
closing down primary schools because of this. I have watched a
documentary about a couple in HK. They deliberately refuse to bear children
because they think raising children would take a lot of money & energy.
However, they do not find it difficult to take care of thirteen cats in their
home.
