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RANGELEY — Hong Zhang, a Colby College professor, will speak on issues faced by China’s aging population at the Rangeley Public Library 6 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 12, as part of the “World in Your Library” lecture series.
The series is sponsored by the Maine Humanities Council and the Margaret Chase Smith Foundation.
Zhang will discuss China’s rapidly aging population and the issues it faces from after almost four decades of a strict one-child policy, from 1980 to 2016.
Those born in the 1950s and 1960s were the first generation of parents who were subject to the strict birth control policy and who have begun to enter old age since 2010. The family structure and old-age support system has departed sharply for that generation of parents from the Chinese tradition that centered on the large family and the filial support from the adult children.
The talk will explore how China’s baby-boomer parents and their only child redefine inter-generational bonds and obligations and in particular how these parents embrace new challenges of aging in empty-nest households and develop new trends of aging that can be seen as providing one window for us to understand China’s new answer to the looming aging crisis.
Zhang earned a doctorate in anthropology from Columbia University. She is an associate professor of East Asian Studies at Colby College, where she teaches both Chinese language and Chinese culture courses. Her research interests include changing family life and marriage patterns in China, impact of the one-child policy on gender and intergenerational relations, new eldercare patterns in China, civil society development in China, and the politics of satire and humor in contemporary China.
Anyone interested in attending this free lecture should call 207-864-5529 or stop by the Rangeley Public Library to sign up.
