Construction Of The Mode Of Household Support For The Aged In The Community Of Hefei City

The policy of family planning has caused a constant decline in the Chinese population, and the policy of reform and opening to the outside world has improved the living standard of Chinese people, all these lead to an average increase in life span. The decline in birth rate and increase in average life span has brought up the problem of aging population. According to the latest Statistical Bulletin of State Economic and Social Development in 2009, which is released by the State Statistics Bureau, the population of sexagenarian and over-sexagenarian had already reached 16.7 million by the end of 2009, occupying 12.5% of the total population. This fact indicates that we are faced with a serious aging problem.With the increased aging population and the age composition in the population getting older, how the aged population could spend a sunset life in a secure way has become an increasingly serious problem which can't be ignored. The traditional way to provide for the aged family members has been influenced by the family planning policy, children may have trouble taking off enough time and money to deal the problem of attending to several aged family members; the organized rest homes for the aged cannot take care of over 100 million aged population either, due to economic, management and cultural reasons. In such a case, a new household support mode has appeared which combined the benefits of family and organization pattern of providing for the aged. Because compared to the dormitory-like rest homes, the elderly would rather stay in their familiar surroundings, and when their family members cannot attend to them, the community or professional firms will provide relevant caring service.Presently, the aging level in Hefei city is not only ahead of the average state level, but also ahead of the economic development, which is a very typical phenomenon of "becoming old before getting rich". Under the limited financial support, the facilities in organized rest homes cannot satisfy the demand of so many senior citizens, meanwhile, most elderly are reluctant to spend their latter life in rest homes or apartments for elderly people, and they wish to spend a retired life in their own houses. These facts require the city government to further integrate social resources and make a reasonable configuration management, combined with the community-based traditional pattern of providing for the aged, so as to best satisfy the service demand of the senior citizens. Developing a socialized home stay caring system is very beneficial, firstly, it will stimulate the service of providing for the aged in Hefei city and relevant industries; secondly, it will increase employment possibilities, and partly solve the problem of laid off workers; finally, it will create an ideal living surroundings for the aged, insuring their happy latter life.The paper is divided into five parts. The first part is introduction, including the background of presenting the problem and meaning of selecting the topic, as well as the statistical resources and research methods.The second part makes a brief summary of the aging characteristics and problem of providing for the aged in Hefei city.The third part discusses the pros and cons of traditional and organization pattern of providing for the aged respectively; makes a theoretical study of the household support for the aged, states its concepts, content, features and meanings, etc.; it also make a comparative analysis of the household support pattern in Shanghai, Nanjing and Suzhou cities.The fourth part is about the making up of household support pattern in Hefei city, analyzing the current situation of elderly caring, it also presents to construct a "2460" home stay caring system, whose structure, composition and activities are explained briefly, this part also offers relevant advice to the government functions.The final part of this paper is conclusion.