A Research Over The Sustenance And Social Security Of Widowed Aged People In Chinese Cities And Countryside

In China, with great shift in population and societal structure,widowed elders emerged as a large group, and grew rapidly.The widowed elders, as a special group, owns uniquesocial-economic and demologic features, and also showscomplex effect and request upon society and their families.Then, a scientific understanding of the basic information andsome trends in the life of the widowed elders with awell-planned strategy could be very positive and significantto solve their social and economic problems and improve thesocial stability.Economic situation is very important to the widowed elders,since to some extent, it decides the level of consumption andcommon satisfaction. To them, comfortable and stable lifetakes great significance, in which they could have thehealthy life, what's more , and could improve higher demandin social services, education, and enjoyments. And it couldalso assure a life with safety and dignity. However, with theincomplete social secure system and community service net,the widowed elders depend much on their own children. Thetradition Chinese family has a extensive character, with acenter in parentage relationship, not in the conjugality as inWestern society. In Chinese family, the upbringing of theelder generation on the offspring is as important as thelife-supporting to the elders from the offspring, which showsthe mutual economic exchange in Chinese family, ratherthan the relay mode in Western life. Thus, it is veryimportant to survey the economic exchange between thewidowed elders and their children. While, research paper inthis field is quite rare.This paper is mainly upon 10% of the data of "The SurveyPaper of the life standard of the elder in Chinese City"in2000 by the Scientific research center on the elderpopulation of China. It mainly takes out the research bycomparison, that is comparison in age, sex, housing, thenumber of the children, mate situation, and living conditionwith children.This paper is in 5 chapters. Chapter 1 is about the meaning,key information , relevant document reviews, and methodsin the research. Chapter 2 to Chapter 5 is the main body ofthe paper, which is mainly about the analysis about thelife-supporting, social security problems.Through the analysis, we can see:1. In China, the widowed elders is in a large number, and in low sex rate. They showed great area differences, and low education level. Compared with the ones with a mate, they feel less satisfied, but more lonely, with a poorer physical ability and economic situation. In housing, they usually lived alone or with the grand-children in the countryside, while in town they lived alone or with the next generation.2. As to the income, the money of the ones living in city mainly is provided by facilities out of the family, while in countryside, its source is mainly within the family. Compared with the ones with mate, the widowed elders depend less on the children. While in the countryside, they depend more.3. In all, the widowed elders living in the city mainlydepend on the support of their children, but with a higher standard than in the countryside. In specific analysis, the economic condition between the widowed and their children varies a lot due to the difference of age, sex, and housing situation and so on. The older the widowed grew, the higher the percentage of life-supporting by children. On sex, male widowed elders could support the children, giving more money than the children did to them, while to female widowed elders and the ones living in countryside, they mostly lived on the children's support. On housing, there is little connection between the housing situation and the supporting form the children. In the countryside, most of the widowed living with the next generation have more support form their children; while the ones living with their grandchildren have less.4. The analysis, which is on the effect of living alone without children on the economic relationship between the widowed elders and their children, shows that the ones living alone could have a better economic situation than the ones living with children. However, this kind of economic effect varies due to aspects like, age, housing, education level and the number of children. In the countryside, compared with the widowed elders living with children, to some certain age, living alone is beneficial to the 70s, since children's support take a larger percentage. As to sex, living alone has slight effect on female ones, while is quite advantageous to the male, since they get more economic support form children. As to housing, the ones living alone or with the next...