Flow Elderly Social Identity Research

With the advent of the aging time and the family trend of the floating population, the flow of the elderly is increasingly becoming a special group which we should pay more attention. There is a strong connection between social identification and social behavior-different social identity state will result in different social behavior. The success of the social identity construction is so important to help the elderly integrate into society, improve their quality of life and maintain social harmony. Therefore, the study on the social identity of the flow elderly has great significance.This study used the method which is mainly by questionnaire survey, supplemented by the depth interview to collect data. Through the combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, the subject is targeted to the elderly over60years old at Anhui Li community in Beijing. The people who have left the original place of residence after50years old and lived in Beijing more than six months are the research objects. The author ranked the list of the elderly of27buildings in the community and applied the method of systematic sampling by the specific number of older persons in each building. The sampling interval is1/5of the total number of the elderly in each building.473elderly were obtained and302effective samples were collected. The effective rate of retrieve is63.85%. Among all effective samples,115were flow elderly and187were non-flow elderly. The measure of social identity includes group identity, regional identity and emotional identity, total25indicators. The measure of its influencing factors includes flow reasons, the acceptance of Beijing and outflow profiles. The author measures social identity threat and its response strategy in the form of asking elderly six open-ended questions in depth interviews. The conclusions of flow elderly's characteristics and the status of their social identity in Beijing are as follows:Firstly, the Beijing flow elderly mainly include female, Han nationality, young elderly, low education level and low income levels. It shows typical features of high rates of medical insurance and low rates of pension insurance in the endowment insurance system. The main reason why they come to Beijing is to help the younger households with child-care and house-work. Most of them come from rural areas, prefecture-level cities or capital cities. Secondly, the degree of flow elderly's social identity is in the medium low level. The lowest one is group identity, emotional identity in center, and regional identity is the highest.The conclusions of influencing factors of the flow elderly's social identity are as follows:Firstly, flow reasons and outflow profiles have significant impact on social identity, group identity and emotional identity. Secondly, the acceptance of Beijing has appreciable impact for social identity, group identity, regional identity and emotional identity. Thirdly, outflow profiles can significantly affect social identity, group identity and emotional identity of the flow elderly.The social identity threats include group value threat, acceptance threat and distinctiveness threat. The response strategies include social mobility strategies and social create strategies.In summary, the Beijing flow elderly has lower social identity degree. There are some social identity threats, but they can deal with the threats through their own mediation, which represents that the flow elderly have initiative in improving their quality of life and integrating themselves into the inflow social.