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Global Perspectives on Aging
Growing Old in a New China: Transitions in Elder Care
Growing Old in a New Transitions in Elder Care is an accessible exploration of changing care arrangements in China. Combining anthropological theory, ethnographic vignettes, and cultural and social history, it sheds light on the growing movement from home-based to institutional elder care in urban China. The book examines how tensions between old and new ideas, desires, and social structures are reshaping the experience of caring and being cared for. Weaving together discussions of family ethics, care work, bioethics, aging, and quality of life, this book puts older adults at the center of the story. It explores changing relationships between elders and themselves, their family members, caregivers, society, and the state, and the attempts made within and across these relational webs to find balance and harmony. The book invites readers to ponder the deep implications of how and why we care and the ways end-of-life care arrangements complicate both living and dying for many elders.
208 pages, Paperback
Published February 12, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 4, 2023
This book is a report of the author's ethnography research on Elder Care in China. The author visited the city KunMing for over 13 months during 2013-2015 to collect observations and interviews from caregivers and older adults who live in nursing home. While the author is a white American, she has learned Chinese for over 10 years and conducted most of the interviews in Chinese without a translator.
China's 65+ population will double in the next 20 years. Who would take care of the elderly population? The government proposes for 90% of the elders to be taken care by their family members, but this becomes challenging as many young migrated from the rural areas to the cities, away from family. Many elders who do not have family to take care of them or who do not want to pose a burden on their family have chosen to stay in nursing homes.
Nursing homes have become increasingly popular and demanding in China. However, many who live in them suffer from the low quality of service and the sense of social abandonment. As described in the book, in lower tier nursing homes, bedrooms and bathrooms are shared, there is no privacy. Elders are asked to eat when they are not hungry, and sleep when they are not tired. While higher tier nursing homes exist and offer better service, they are more costly and few could afford. Statistics reflect the challenges that older adults go through. In Taiwan, 82% of elders in nursing homes suffer from depression. The suicide rate of Chinese elderly population of the double of the US.
The author suggested that some of the challenges in China's Elder Care system could be addressed through the government imposing a unified standard on the quality of service. This would be challenging because the root problem of low standard of service in nursing homes is the low rates. Subsidy would be necessary to increase the standard of service.
This book also offered some insights on the concept of filial piety. Filial piety is the social expectation on the young to take care of their parents. It has been a core value of the Chinese culture since imperial times. However, in modern China, it becomes increasing difficult for the young to take care of their parents. For one, due to one-child policy, many family are structured in 4:2:1, meaning that 2 married adults need to take care of 4 older adults and 1 child. It is not the case that the young do not wish to take care of their parents, but rather that they are not capable. Taking care of their parents would make it challenging for them to maintain their full-time job, and a happy lifestyle. As a result, the social expectation of filial piety becomes challenging to fulfill.
If you would like an introduction to how nursing homes are like in China and how the elderly in living in nursing homes feel, this book would be a good start. After reading this book, I am curious to learn about how elder care is like in developed countries, and how China is preparing itself to tackle the issue of aging population.
China's 65+ population will double in the next 20 years. Who would take care of the elderly population? The government proposes for 90% of the elders to be taken care by their family members, but this becomes challenging as many young migrated from the rural areas to the cities, away from family. Many elders who do not have family to take care of them or who do not want to pose a burden on their family have chosen to stay in nursing homes.
Nursing homes have become increasingly popular and demanding in China. However, many who live in them suffer from the low quality of service and the sense of social abandonment. As described in the book, in lower tier nursing homes, bedrooms and bathrooms are shared, there is no privacy. Elders are asked to eat when they are not hungry, and sleep when they are not tired. While higher tier nursing homes exist and offer better service, they are more costly and few could afford. Statistics reflect the challenges that older adults go through. In Taiwan, 82% of elders in nursing homes suffer from depression. The suicide rate of Chinese elderly population of the double of the US.
The author suggested that some of the challenges in China's Elder Care system could be addressed through the government imposing a unified standard on the quality of service. This would be challenging because the root problem of low standard of service in nursing homes is the low rates. Subsidy would be necessary to increase the standard of service.
This book also offered some insights on the concept of filial piety. Filial piety is the social expectation on the young to take care of their parents. It has been a core value of the Chinese culture since imperial times. However, in modern China, it becomes increasing difficult for the young to take care of their parents. For one, due to one-child policy, many family are structured in 4:2:1, meaning that 2 married adults need to take care of 4 older adults and 1 child. It is not the case that the young do not wish to take care of their parents, but rather that they are not capable. Taking care of their parents would make it challenging for them to maintain their full-time job, and a happy lifestyle. As a result, the social expectation of filial piety becomes challenging to fulfill.
If you would like an introduction to how nursing homes are like in China and how the elderly in living in nursing homes feel, this book would be a good start. After reading this book, I am curious to learn about how elder care is like in developed countries, and how China is preparing itself to tackle the issue of aging population.
November 19, 2023
read in mandarin for my course "Body and Society" at PKU!
it was really well-researched; the author goes to Kunming for two years and does interviews with residents and nurses at various types of elder care facilities there. She discusses how many residents decided to put themselves into nursing homes to liberate their children and also because they don't see it as intrinsically related to filial piety (Xiao). However, nearly all her interviewees express being sad about how little their family visits them yet they feel unable to voice their wishes to their children. Also of note was the discussion on how our bodies remember a country's and a society's trauma: many of the elders have scars or bumps or missing fingers defining them as having lived through the Mao years and the Cultural Revolution, and the author writes that this history is still being enacted on their bodies today because these scars are still present in them today. Our bodies remember forever even when our hearts don't.
it was really well-researched; the author goes to Kunming for two years and does interviews with residents and nurses at various types of elder care facilities there. She discusses how many residents decided to put themselves into nursing homes to liberate their children and also because they don't see it as intrinsically related to filial piety (Xiao). However, nearly all her interviewees express being sad about how little their family visits them yet they feel unable to voice their wishes to their children. Also of note was the discussion on how our bodies remember a country's and a society's trauma: many of the elders have scars or bumps or missing fingers defining them as having lived through the Mao years and the Cultural Revolution, and the author writes that this history is still being enacted on their bodies today because these scars are still present in them today. Our bodies remember forever even when our hearts don't.
July 5, 2023
认命，是养老院许多老年人面对社会孤立、生活无意义却又死不了时的心理状态。这种思维方式真的太老中了，读起来除了深深的乏力感，俺还有点理解为啥一部分社会学家批判心理学。这种现实下，心理学有什么用，我也不知道。作者试图从老年人的视角去分析养老，收集的材料还可以，只是组织形式、讲故事的方式都略有平淡。
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews