Reconceptualizing Intergenerational Obligations in Confucian Family Contexts: A Reciprocal Ethics Framework for Family Theory
Open accessAbstract
This article develops reciprocal intergenerational ethics, a nontransactional framework for explaining how obligations between parents and adult children acquire moral force, limits, and negotiability in Confucian family contexts. Existing theories explain how intergenerational support is organized, exchanged, and contested but less often distinguish a culturally endorsed duty from the ethical warrant of a particular filial care claim. Drawing on Confucian role ethics, especially the reciprocal relation between filial responsibility ( xiao ) and parental care ( ci ), I treat filial obligation as a relationally conditioned claim rather than a fixed status duty. Six propositions specify ethical warrant, moral reciprocity, proportionality, ambivalence, constrained hierarchy, and life‐course accountability. The framework links parental and filial responsibilities without reducing reciprocity to repayment and clarifies how structural constraints shape the forms care can reasonably take.
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- Authors
- Zhao, L.
- Affiliations
- Nanjing Institute of Technology (CN)
- Corresponding author
- Zhao, Longlong
- ORCID
- Zhao, Longlong
- Venue
- Journal of Family Theory & Review
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2026-09-24
- ISSN
- 1756-2570 (ISSN-L)
- 1756-2589
- OpenAlex
- W7214241929
- Cited by
- 0
- References
- 23
- FWCI
- 0.00
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Journal of Family Theory & Review (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Nanjing Institute of Technology
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Intergenerational Family Dynamics and Caregiving
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Chinese history and philosophy
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Philosophy, Sociology, Political Theory
- Keywords
- intergenerational responsibility, Confucian family, filial duty, filial piety, ci, parental care, moral reciprocity, family theory, role ethics, proportionality, intergenerational support
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