An Analysis Of The Status Quo Of Urban Elderly Living Pattern And Its Influencing Factors

The social development trend in China is tending to low birth rate, low fertility and aging. The birth rate begins to decrease, while the number of empty nesters, elderly people who live alone and other vulnerable elderly groups increase. The process of Chinese society transformation gave birth to the Chinese family pattern transformation. The Chinese families are experiencing dramatic change; this change is interacted with the demographic and social changes. China’s urban family size began to be smaller and nuclear family is becoming the mainstream. Parent and offspring live separately. Intergenerational relationship becomes simple. Changes of family patterns cause changes of family relations, the same as partner relationship, parent-child relationships and family kinship. All these changes have practical and deep impact on the current and future family supporting model. More and more families face the problem of looking after the ages, and this is not just the government and the society’s responsibility. Under the double impact of aging and low birth rate, along with the frequent and sustained population migration, the Chinese families, especially empty nesters and old people who live alone, are difficult to spend their rest time under their children’s care, not to speaking of the very old people. The ideal choice is community service and nursing home. The government still plays an active role in the public pension service, such as providing direct assistance to families and policy support to private pension institutions. And the government still needs to create a positive social atmosphere for the elderly people and continue its pension reform.