Qiong Wu, Rong Wang

Qiong Wu

27 November, 2023

The New China, Childcare and care, Family responsibility, Historical change.

Family is the genetic unit to understand China's 5000-year civilization history and also an important symbol to witness China's social changes. The process of human socialization begins with family, which bears the main responsibility for the care of infants and young children. Based on the framework of historical institutionalism analysis, with time development as a vertical sequence and historical facts as a horizontal basis, this article summarizes the changes in family responsibility for childcare and care of infants and young children aged 0-3 since the founding of New China. This process can be divided into three stages: de-familization, re-familization, and shared responsibility. In addition, it also delves into the multiple driving factors behind each stage, such as politics, economy, and population, in order to reflect and keep an eye on reality through historical experience, and provide useful references for alleviating current family parenting pressure, enhancing family fertility willingness, and standardizing and promoting the development of infants and young children childcare and care.

© 2023, the Authors. Published by ISCCAC

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license