Hong Kong Families: At the Crossroads of Modernism and Traditionalism

Abstract

The cultural embeddedness of family structure and processes is a crudal point of departure in unravelling family life in Hong Kong. Two sets of cultural forces, that of Chinese traditionalism and Western modernism, provide the key ideological axes in the shaping of Hong Kong families. This ideological vantage point sheds important light on salient aspects of the family conditions, e.g., the prevalence of utilitarianistic familism, the rise of nuclear families, the changing authority pattern among family members, and the formation of gradated, extended familial ties. These variegated features are characterized in this essay in terms of the concept of modified nuclear family.