With the modernization of China’s system and capacity for governance, social governance has gradually become a public concern. However, our understanding of “society” in social governance deserves deeper discussion. In recent years, many social governance studies have zoomed in on communities, social organizations, and social elites like new local worthies (xin xiangxian), while family has been overlooked as a social factor in one way or another.

Significance of family households

Families are constituents of society, whether in ancient or modern times, domestically or overseas. In China, where the similarities in structure between the state and family are central to the governance system, families bear a special significance in social governance, more than in other countries.

In the pre-Qin era (prior to 221 BCE), the District System (Xiangsui Zhi), which divided residential areas across the state into hierarchically different zones, took families as the very basic unit of governance. The terminology of the system differed between areas in the royal domain and elsewhere, as five families constituted an official neighborhood (bi比 in the royal domain and lin elsewhere), five neighborhoods made up a village (lyu and li, respectively), four villages a precinct (zu and zan), five precincts a ward (dang and bi鄙), five wards a township (zhou and xian), and five townships a district (xiang and sui).

After the Qin regime unified China, all family households were registered to dissolve the hierarchy, creating a system marked by the organic integration of a complete custom-backed family system and a sound household registration system bolstered by state administration. This formed the fundamental system, or original tradition, of Chinese society.

Contemporary social governance should not divorce itself from this tradition, nor from the family household system. It is vital to consciously inherit and reasonably absorb effective mechanisms and useful factors from the system on that basis, paying full attention to families as a unit in social governance.

In fact, in contemporary social governance of China, families play a unique role and have been highly valued by the ruling party and the government. At a conference to honor model families across the nation in December 2016, General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee Xi Jinping highlighted enhancing civility in Chinese families and making it an important foundation for the country’s development, progress, and social harmony. The Fourth Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee in October 2019 also called for efforts to give full play to the role of families, family education, and family traditions in social governance at the community level. All these reflect the importance of families in Chinese social governance.

Contemporary practices

In response to the call, local governments across China have carried out a series of explorations in social governance based on family households.

First, attempts have been made to promote harmony in each family household by helping resolve and handle domestic disputes, problems, and predicaments. For example, the political and legal affairs committee and women’s federation of Fuyang District in Hangzhou, east China’s Zhejiang Province, used technology to aid in dealing with household affairs. It established a database of basic information related to all families in the district alongside a digital application platform, realizing the linkage between government departments and between authorities of all levels, as well as multi-party synergy among the government, village communes, administration grids, and social organizations. Bao’an District in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, also built a platform for skillfully mediating domestic concerns, with the coordinated support of related departments, to discover, report, intervene in, and address relationship problems as early as possible.

Second, a chain of distinctive family building activities has been rolled out, encouraging residents to formulate family instructions, cultivate family values, and attach importance to family education. Some areas explored point-based family management. For example, Yongchang Township in Fuyang District, Zhejiang Province, introduced a “morality index,” and Dongzhou Neighborhood, also in Fuyang District, came up with a “public praise index.” Zhejiang has even initiated provincial-level campaigns to enhance family civility and advance family education.

Family services in the form of social security policies, government assistance, and volunteering have been provided to guarantee the life of each household and promote family development. The government, at both central and local levels, unveiled a series of social security policies and social services with family households as the unit, such as helping poor families, supplying indemnificatory housing, and allowing family members to share housing provident funds and medical insurance programs. Families experiencing difficulties also received support from multiple government departments. For instance, Yunhe County in Zhejiang set up a joint aid platform for households that rely on allowances to meet a minimum quality of life guarantee, building an archive and making a happiness list for each family household.

In addition, targeted policies have been released to manage family households, guiding and regulating family acts to maintain social order and sustain social development. These include the “One Homestead Per Household” housing policy in rural areas, and housing purchase restrictions on each household in some cities. During the COVID-19 epidemic, many neighborhood communities distributed daily supplies household by household when residents worked from home, were under medical observation, or quarantined at home.

Looking forward

Admittedly, China has accumulated rich successful experience in social governance based on family households, but the system is apparently fragmented and not systematic or integrative. Systematic construction and integrated innovation are imperative in social governance with family households as the basic unit.

First it is essential to highlight the importance of families in Chinese social governance in the new era. In China, family is the basic cell of society and the basic unit to bring social members together. It occupies a unique status and has special functions. Different from in Western countries, where individualism is upheld, the family household system not only determines the development and governance of traditional Chinese society, but also has a strong bearing on modern Chinese society. History has shown that discarding family household traditions would set China back in social development and governance.

In contemporary and future social governance of China, the intrinsic value and nucleus of the family household system should be uncovered, to build necessary links between traditional and modern societies.

Certainly, different environments will result in different characteristics in the family household system. Analyzing the structure of family households and form of the system under specific circumstances offers a breakthrough to help us understand the development and governance of Chinese society.

Second, efforts are needed to reasonably define the content of social governance with family households as the unit, based on domestic problems and demands. In terms of problem-oriented family management, a wide range of issues should be taken into account, including conflict among family members, financial disputes, safety of property, domestic violence, and poverty, to provide targeted guidance, formulate specific management strategies, and take proper security actions. Regarding demand-oriented family services, it is crucial to identify families’ life aspirations of different levels and categories with appropriate methods under the guidance of demand theories, thereby adopting practical and effective strategies for family service provision.

Third, Party organizations, government departments, families, and social forces should work hand in hand to establish a Party-led multi-party interactive governance system. Families and domestic affairs should not be simply regarded as part of the private domain. In fact, family affairs fall into many categories. Some are private, making it inconvenient for public power to step in, but there are some issues that public powers and social forces have to, need to, and may intervene in. For instance, helping poor families, mediating conflicts among family members, preventing domestic violence, and meeting household needs not only matter to each family involved, but also to the harmonious development and common prosperity of society as a whole. The key lies in distinguishing family affairs and setting limits on the rights of various subjects in family governance, stressing the fundamental role of family autonomy while making clear the power, responsibilities, and role of the government and social forces, clarifying the boundaries between public power interventions and social synergy in family governance.

Last but not the least, the rule of virtue, of law, of emotions, and of wisdom should be combined to construct an effective empowerment mechanism. In the new era, family governance should inherit and draw upon traditional experiences in the family household system and reconstruct a new model in light of specific realities of modern Chinese social governance. On the one hand, it is important to emphasize the rule of virtue, the rule of law, and the rule of wisdom according to the general needs of social governance in the new era. On the other hand, we should underscore the unique function and value of the rule of emotions based on peculiarities of family governance.

Family is a bond by blood and kinship. It is an affective community. When handling relationships among family members and domestic affairs, emotions, instead of rational choices, should usually be prioritized. Wise governance that considers family members’ emotional ties is of special meaning to social governance with family households as the unit, and so an empowerment mechanism which integrates the rule of virtue, law, emotions, and wisdom is vital to modernizing the capacity for family governance.

Lu Fuying (professor), Lu Jingjing, and Zhang Mingwei are from the School of Public Administration at Hangzhou Normal University.