Legislating for Filial Piety: An Indirect Approach to Promoting Family Support and Responsibility for Older People in Korea

Abstract

Although every culture follows its own indigenous elder care practices, Korea has retained a unique way of supporting elder parents, specifically, and older people in general. When the care of older people in Korea became significantly challenging, it was determined to launch a controversial law to promote the tradition of filial piety. The main content of the law consists of requiring the government to take action to encourage filial piety and to support those adult children who care for their parents. Although this legislation has the potential to promote the practice of filial piety, the nature of the law is largely rhetorical and symbolic rather than practical, and as a result, its workability and efficiency are limited.

KEYWORDS:

• family responsibility
• filial piety
• Korean
• older people
• social care

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

This work was supported by the Korea Foundation Grant funded by the Korean Government in 2013.