Wednesday, February 09, 2011

Should Children Be Forced To Visit Their Aging Parents?

A couple of weeks ago I had a post about something from SuperFreakonomics, how children are more likely to visit their parents in nursing homes if the parent is rich (and if they have a sibling, since they are in competition for the inheritance). Now it turns out that China might force children to visit their parents. A proposed law would allow parents to sue their children if they don't visit. It is not clear how often they would have to visit or for how long. See China Might Force Visits to Mom and Dad from the NY Times. Here is one tidbit that has economic implications:

"In Shandong Province, for instance, a court ordered three daughters to each pay their 80-year-old mother between 350 to 500 renminbi, roughly $53 to $75 a month, after the mother claimed that they ignored her and treated her like a burden, The Qingdao Evening News reported this month."

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