is it the responsibility of the young to provide financial security for the aged? (Essay Sample)

Is It The Responsibility Of The Young To Provide Financial Security For The Aged? Name Institutional affiliation Date Is It The Responsibility Of The Young To Provide Financial Security For The Aged? Family is the strongest support unit in society, and familial support can be in the form of adult children, assisting elderly parents, or parents offering support to their grown up children. I believe that the young have a responsibility to provide financial security for the aged. A study done by the Pew Research Center in Italy, the U.S and Germany also supports this view. Eighty-seven percent of adults in Italy believe that children should provide financial assistance to elderly parents if they need it. Seventy-six percent of Americans and 58 percent of Germans also expressed similar views (Pew Research Center, 2015). Neglecting elderly parents is unethical because our parents gave us life and took care of us when we were young and vulnerable. Parents also sacrificed their time, resources and effort to raise us. This implies that we should be there for our parents when they need us the most. In fact, some jurisdictions like China have passed laws that compel children to provide parents with physical and emotional support. For instance, adult children who fail to visit their elderly parent may face fines or even a jail term. In Ukraine, adult children have the responsibility of showing concern and providing assistance for their elderly parents. This means that a needy elderly parent in Ukraine has the right to sue his/her child for financial support (Russo, 2013). Twenty states in the U.S also had laws that obliged adult children to provide financial support to elderly parents who were disabled or had no income. However, these laws were subverted in the 1950s, when the elderly started reaping the benefits of Medicare and Social Security (Russo, 2013...