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Context-Specific Eldercare Patterns, Cultural Categories of Elder Mistreatment, and Potential Social Causes in Post-Socialist China

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Abstract

This article explores the impact of housing reform on eldercare patterns through examining the social causes for the increasing phenomenon of elder mistreatment in urban China. Based on my ethnographic fieldwork in Shanghai, this article suggests a new eldercare pattern, including prioritized conjugal care, “heritage-based” adult-child care, as well as housing-for-pension care. This pattern has been constructed in the post-reform era in Chinese urban areas, which lays a foundation for a culture-related elder mistreatment. Three cultural categories of elder mistreatment have been identified: neglect and/or intergenerational conflicts, family care and ties contingent upon inheritance of the seniors’ houses, and “structural mistreatment.” Further examination suggests three major factors contributing to the emerging phenomenon of elder mistreatment: (1) privatization of housing ownership resulting in social-spatial differentiation of living affecting care patterns and potential for mistreatment of the elderly; (2) sociocultural limitations and structural restrictions on approaching social eldercare resulting from an economically-focused social environment; and (3) transformed social values, such as materialism and individualism, which have led to reinterpretation of intergenerational exchange. By contextualizing elder mistreatment within housing reform, this study offers a new perspective for studies of the family in post-reform China.

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Notes

  1. This claim is based on the data from the Aging Research Center of Shanghai. Shanghai statistic annual report for demographic changes and the social services for aging population (2000, 2012, 2013). Website: http://www.shrca.org.cn/sub02_1_1.html?page=1, accessed in August, 2014.

  2. Currently, there are four different levels of care established in institutions, from third level care to special care. 1) The third level of care is for those who live independently and do not need help from others; 2) the second level of care is for those who either are 80 or older, or rely on a cane or wheel chair and need assistance from others; 3) the first level of care is for those who are aged 90 or older, or need other people’s help to perform daily activities or have mild cognitive impairment; 4) a special care level is for individuals who are completely dependent on others or have moderate cognitive impairment or beyond. There is a government committee who is in charge of the evaluation and assessment of the dependency and care levels based on these criteria, and admission fees differ depending on the level of care the enrollees needed.

  3. For example, it will take at least 2–3 years for the elderly people to enroll into the Third Social Welfare Nursing Home of Shanghai based on my interview with some community residents.

  4. Some of the social entrepreneur-run nursing homes (314 such facilities in Shanghai) are at very high price, ranging from 4000 RMB to 10,000 RMB differently according to the care level and quality, which is beyond the affordability of average people whose monthly pension is about 3000 RMB in 2014.

  5. Although residents living in the public houses had to pay rents, it was quite cheap and could be offset by their lower wages during the collective era.

  6. Within the inner ring of the city, the average price of household is 55,518 RMB per square meter, and there are about 351,900 square meters for sale; and for the household within central rings, the average price is 20,667 RMB, and total area is about 3,382,800 square meters; and the average household price of outer ring of Shanghai is about 10,782 RMB, and the total sale area is 12,191,600 square meters. So the average sale price of the house is: (55,518 RMB* 351,900 m2 + 20,667*3,382,800 m2 + 10,782*12,191,600 m2)/(351,900 m2 + 3,382,800 m2 + 12,191,600 m2) = 13,870.3

    The data comes from the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Statistics http://www.stats-sh.gov.cn/fxbg/201301/251763.html, accessed in August, 2014.

  7. The data comes from my fieldwork. The compensation for different areas of land acquisition is different based on the market land prices and the potential commercial values. Details can be found from the official paper of 2013 The Standard of Compensation for Land Acquisition in Shanghai.

  8. The Elders Protection Law of China (中华人民共和国老年人权益保障法) website: http://www.mca.gov.cn/article/zwgk/fvfg/shflhshsw/201302/20130200418213.shtml, accessed on December 8th, 2014.

  9. The data comes from the Aging Research Center of Shanghai. Shanghai statistic annual report for demographic changes and the social services for aging population (2013). Website: http://www.shrca.org.cn/sub02_1_1.html?page=1, accessed in August, 2016.

  10. There are no available data for the year of 2014 and 2015.

  11. Most of the adult children are the only-child in the nuclear family, which seems to be an important and reliable source for family care for current caregivers, especially for poor widows or widowers in the future.

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Acknowledgments

This project was financially supported by Social Justice Fellowship at Case Western Reserve University. Support was also provided by Shanghai Xintu Community Health Promotion Center and the Shanghai Law Center for the Elderly in practice. I am grateful to my advisor Dr. Lihong Shi, who gave me guidance on organizing this paper and to Jeanne Shea and Hong Zhang for further feedback. The paper also benefited from discussant comments provided by Charlotte Ikels when the first version of this paper was presented at the conference of the Association of Asian Studies in 2013.

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  1. Department of Anthropology, Case Western Reserve University, Mather Memorial Room 238, Cleveland, OH, 44106-7125, USA

    Yan Zhang

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Correspondence to Yan Zhang.

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This research was approved by the Institutional Review Board of Case Western Reserve University. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in this study.

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Zhang, Y. Context-Specific Eldercare Patterns, Cultural Categories of Elder Mistreatment, and Potential Social Causes in Post-Socialist China. Ageing Int 42, 169–186 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12126-016-9265-3

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