Surviving earth is facing a new wave- the "silver wave"- the impact of an ageing population. According to the report of United Nations (2019), in the world 703 million persons aged 65 years or over in 2019, which is anticipated to double to 1.5 billion in 2050, and it has been fastest in Eastern and South-Eastern Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. The elderly people are often considered a vulnerable group (Bozzaro et al., 2018). In recent years, vulnerable groups have become an internationally accepted term. From a theoretical point of view, a disadvantaged group refers to a group that is in the poor stratum of economic life, the lower tier of spiritual, cultural, and cultural life (including the low tier of social status), and the fragility of tolerance. It can be seen whether the loss of human capital with market competitiveness, whether it is difficult to integrate into the social life of the local society, and whether it is challenging to enjoy equal civil rights with other groups.

At present, in the process of ageing, the study pays special attention to gender differences. The number of older women are increasing more rapidly and it is estimated that by 2050, the number of elderly women over 60 years old will be 3.2 times that of 2000. Besides, due to the average life expectancy of the population, the life expectancy of women is longer than that of men. According to calculation the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division of United Nations in 2019, mentioned in the report of United Nations (2019), life expectancy at age 65, ‘within 2015–2020, globally At the global level, in 2015–2020, women’s life expectancy at birth exceeds that of men by 4.8 years. The female advantage in average longevity was largest in Latin America and the Caribbean (6.5 years), Europe and Northern America (6.1 years), and Eastern and South-Eastern Asia (5.3 years). In contrast, the female advantage is smaller in Central and Southern Asia (2.7 years), Oceania (3.0 years), and sub-Saharan Africa (3.5 years). The female survival advantage persists into older ages.’

Women’s health status is poor (Smith et al., 2018). It also shows that the number and rate of elderly women in cities where widowed life alone has increased (Hashmi, 2017; Lopata, 2017) and which becomes a severe problem during and post-period situation of the COVID-19 (Ayittey et al., 2020; Dhar et al., 2020). The rate of morbidity and the need for care of elderly women is very high, which affects the specific development situation in a country. Not only the function of caring for the elderly cannot be quickly transferred to society but they also need to get or partly get help from their families and children for their livelihood support. However, due to the gradual increase in the number of only children in the city and the continuous increase in mobility. They have the contradiction that they need to take care of themselves and their children cannot take care of them. They also suffer from a lonely and lonely life after they are widowed, and they are moving away from the mainstream of society.

Moreover, the current group of elderly women were born in the 1940s and 1950s of the twentieth century (Goldin, & Mitchell, 2017). At that time, most of the countries implemented a low-income, low-price economic policy. Most of the wage income can maintain an average level of living expenses. Most of them retire from low-income levels without much savings. Furthermore, they are regarded as a group that ‘does not produce wealth’ (Asebedo et al., 2019). Most of them have never participated in paid social labour (Ghilarducci et al., 2017). Very few even participate in paid social labour. Generally, they can only undertake low-paying work with low technical content. Under the conditions of market competition, they are even more disadvantaged. Become a marginal group of society. Traditional ideas constrain this generation of older women. Most of them follow the role division of ‘male lead outside, female lead inside’, relying on the husband or adult children in life. They serve the family's kids, young and old by bearing hardships and stand hard work silently. In the event of a sudden incident, if divorced or widowed, it is often easy to lose their primary source of income. In the formulation of public policy, they are generally easy to be ignored. They are also far away from the centre of social power and becoming a part of the disadvantaged group of society.

The Psychological Characteristics of Old Urban Women

Changes in Perception and Memory

Urban elderly women, like all elderly people, their perceptions have also changed. Various sensory systems (hearing, vision, taste, skin sensation, etc.) have general degenerative changes. The sensitivity of the response to external stimuli decreases, and the perception time is prolonged (Verhaeghen et al., 2019). Memory also declines with the increase of age, manifested by forgetting words when picking up pens, and losing things in doing things (O’Brien et al., 2017). Speaking from the east to the west, seeing very familiar faces makes them unfamiliar, and they like to live in their memories. They often tell their juniors about their past life experiences and experience. Especially the old women who have done something in the past and are a bit of a life.

Anxiety and fear

After some urban elderly women retired, their interpersonal feelings gradually deviated from the position of interpersonal bonds. Increased distrust of the people around, they feel monotonous and poor in life, and prone to loneliness, tension, and anxiety. With the increase in age, the health status of them deteriorates day by day (Holloway et al., 2016). The elderly women in urban areas become more concerned about their physical and emotional activities. They often think they bring trouble to the family and the younger generation, become a burden to the family. Once they get sick, they seemed to feel that they were not far from the god of death. Therefore, elderly women in urban areas are usually afraid, anxious and fearful of illness and death. There are more elderly women than men in cities that suspect that they are suffering from illness and insomnia (Serrano-Checa et al., 2020). Moreover, they tend to be suspicious and stubborn and will not easily let go of their ideas. Thoughts are overburdened. On the contrary, the burden of worry and anxiety can cause harm to physical and mental health, and even actually cause disease.

Feel Dissatisfied With Reality and Even Lose Confidence

Mention the corruption and immorality in society, the elderly often complain that the world is worse off, and today is not as good as before when it comes to comfort and comfort. Most of them cannot get used to some of the life habits and styles of the younger generation, and always love to talk long and short in front of the younger generation (Al-Ruthia et al., 2017). So, it seems to be a little bit grumble. That is "mother-in-law's mouth". Moreover, a considerable number of urban elderly women cannot adapt to the various changes in the transition from a planned economy to a market economy, especially the "old age value" in traditional society is gradually disappearing in modern society. As a result, they have a mental state of "people, old and yellow are worthless". Even the thoughts that all thoughts are mixed up. This kind of distrust of life can easily lead to ageing, and their negative emotions can also affect the relationship between their family, relatives, friends, and neighbours.

Psychology Indolent and Repressed

Urban elderly women often conceal their true feelings in their daily lives. In case of a happy event, they no longer cheered in the case of tragedy. Generally speaking, the scope of their interests gradually shrinks with age. Curiosity gradually weakened. Their attitude towards all kinds of things has become cold, and desire to explore new things has gradually declined, showing their mental "indolence" (Aday & Dye, 2019). Furthermore, they are prone to setbacks in real life. For example, encounter conflicts and disputes within the family, children have difficulties in entering school, employment, marriage, and smoking. Due to the causes closed psychological state, they often feel bored in the house, mentally depressed. It will become sighing, irritable, depressed, or depressed.

A Sense of Loss and Loneliness

Urban elderly women who have participated in the work, after retiring, due to their leading activities and social roles have changed. Moving from a work unit to a family, its social relations and living environment are more unfamiliar than before, plus children "leaving the nest", make them "lonely and lonely" (Botterill et al., 2016; Roos et al., 2019). The sense of loss makes them feel psychologically lost. In addition, because urban older women have a longer life expectancy than men, many urban older women feel incredibly lonely after facing their widows alone. Once they feel the loneliness of the "empty nest". Psychological or emotional support systems tend to be fragile. Experiments have shown that loneliness after widowhood can stimulate the distribution of trace elements and inorganic ions in the body to produce confusion, causing rapid changes in cardiac muscle activity, contraction of the coronary arteries for a short time, and acute coronary artery insufficiency.

Psychological Adjustment and Guidance for Elderly Urban Women

Macro-level

Optimize the Social and Psychological Environment

The health and perfection of social norms and orders are to control various morbid social phenomena effectively. Therefore, it is one of the practical ways to unblock social mentality and cultivate social atmosphere. Some illegal behaviours such as counterfeiting and shoddy, using power for personal gain, scams and abductions are continually appearing in a disorderly state, which has a particular impact on the mentality of our urban elderly women. It contrasts with the stable and unchanging living conditions they yearn for. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen the balance of social psychology of orderly women. Besides, due to social psychology, there is a sense of sympathy and belonging. Hence, the correct direction of public opinion can be promoted by strengthening, for example, through newspapers, radio, television, and other publicity media. Guide urban elderly women to correctly understand the laws of family development and correctly deal with the phenomenon of "leaving the nest" (Albert et al., 2017). Children "leave the nest" to open their own living space, to nurture their offspring. It is the inevitable trend of family development. Care for "leaving the nest" is necessary but worry is not necessary. At the same time, it becomes necessary to encourage our children to care for the lives of our elderly at the social level. In the whole society, promoting good social customs of caring for the elderly and build a society for all ages becomes a necessity now-a-days.

Community Care for the Elderly

At present, generally speaking, urban communities play an essential role in caring for the elderly. It not only gives full support to family care. To a certain extent, it also made up for the lack of care of relatives. Moreover, it reduces their mental and physical stress. While improving the existing community pension service system, attention should be paid to the provision of community service personnel. It is also possible to create a demonstration community for women civilized. Give full play to the advantages of the Women's Federation in the overall structure of the community, care for and help disadvantaged groups of women, resolve various social conflicts, and maintain the stability of urban society (Sun et al., 2016). In particular, we will intensify our work on preventive services for vulnerable groups of elderly women in urban areas. Establish the necessary old-age security system. Strengthen services for elderly women in cities. For widowed, lonely urban elderly women. The community should show more care and love, carry out more “send warmth” activities, and actively help resolve their loneliness and pessimism while promoting health care knowledge.

Advocate the Development of Human Resources for Urban Elderly Women

The average life expectancy of the population of the world is increasing. Relatively, the time for older women to work is also increasing. In some industrial sectors, female senior engineers retire across the board at the age of 55, or even retreat beforehand. This adds vitality to the resources of the elderly. Therefore, it is feasible to develop the human resources of urban elderly women. Most of the elderly women in urban areas were business backbones when they were employed, and some were academic and technical leaders in the party, government, military, and civil studies. In terms of higher education and scientific research, their knowledge, experience, technology, and the ability to manage family affairs are becoming more mature (Liu & Lou, 2016). The abilities of abstract thinking, analysis and judgment, and problem-solving of older women are not inferior to those of young and middle-aged women. Therefore, some elderly female teachers who are engaged in education work feel that they are beyond their ability to teach in the classroom, but after retirement, they slowly think about some problems at home and write some words are still very useful. Moreover, with the popularity of computers in intellectual families. The development of communication and fax technology and the use of the internet has created conditions for the elderly to continue to work at home with mental labour. Therefore, they can search for information online, use computers, telephones, and faxes to participate in topic research and scientific research work while living at home, to increase opportunities and possibilities for the use and development of their talents. Furthermore, those urban elderly women who have not participated in work at home for a long time also encourage them to participate in social activities that they are interested in as much as they can—for example, community propaganda work, traditional handicraft work, etc.

Micro-level

Mastering the Skills to Understand the Psychology of Urban Elderly Women

Observe their attitudes and understand the changes in their life habits, such as adaptability or residence before and after retirement, economic life, interpersonal relationships, and satisfaction with life, etc. Through understanding their relationship with relatives and friends to understand their mentality (Reyes Uribe, 2018). Do you like to criticize others or write about past deeds? Do you have self-esteem? Do you participate in meaningful activities? Is it good at handling personal belongings and whether it maintains its unique characteristics? Understanding their unique characteristics and respecting their dignity, choosing a good time, listening to their conversations patiently and earnestly, and praising and encourage them appropriately can make them happy. If they give proper praise or encouragement to the people, things, or things they cherish, they will have a sincere sense of pride and satisfaction in the past to enhance confidence in life and love life more.

Facilitate Anxiety and Fear of Ageing and Disease

Urban elderly women, family members or relatives who have anxiety and phobias should let them receive psychological treatment in time. Cooperate with the doctor to do the relevant examinations. After proving that they are physically healthy, they should be allowed to accept the doctor’s interpretive psychotherapy patiently (Ahmadpanah et al., 2017). According to the doctor’s advice on their personality defects, positively correct them. They can also take anti-anxiety drugs under the guidance of a doctor to relax emotions, eliminate sadness and anxiety. Also, according to the guidance of psychologists, let them do relaxation training as much as possible to relax their tension. When the necessary inspections prove that they are not ill, encourage them to shift their attention from the diseased area that they believe to be. The symptoms will naturally diminish or disappear. The guidance of relatives, friends and doctors will make them feel suspicious, and resolve the fear of being abandoned and the fear of death.

Cultivate Interest and Encourage Participation in Physical Training

After retiring, urban elderly women have more leisure time, so they can work hard to find their interests, participate in various cultural and recreational activities and collective activities, and shift their attention to things of interest. Interest can be produced through cultivation. After they retired, they cultivated a wide range of interests and hobbies that were suitable for them in time, such as fishing, growing flowers, playing chess, reading books, drawing, practising the piano, boxing, fencing, dancing, travelling, swimming, and so on., is not only beneficial to health, but also can cultivate sentiment, resolve loneliness, and free themselves from the small lonely circle (Pettigrew et al., 2019).

Conclusions

In summary, compared with other female populations in cities and male elderly people, older women in cities have more difficulties in their lives, have insufficient retirement income, be widowed, live alone, and become careers of other relatives. In this sense, they are a very fragile group. Older women have a higher proportion of chronic diseases and disability due to diseases, and they are also more vulnerable to discrimination and neglect. Therefore, the study pays attention to the fragile and vulnerable group of urban elderly women. By adopting protective policies and measures in a targeted manner this problem can be resolved. It is not only a critical responsibility of the state and the government, but also the social responsibility of all sectors of society, including enterprises and non-profit sectors of society, and even every ordinary citizen to support the elderly women for making their rest of lives happier and enjoyable.