Research On Pension Problem Of Rural Empty-nesters

The accelerating process of industrialization and urbanization attracts largeamount of surplus rural labor to the city weakening the old-support capacity of thefamily. At the same time, the incomplete rural old-age insurance system, the deficientrural communal resource and the escalation of the aging process highlight theendowment dilemma of the empty-nesters. Furthermore，material guarantee and dailylife caring, the monotonous spiritual life of the empty-nesters make them suffer fromthe empty-nest syndrome. Bias in system and negligence of rural disadvantagedgroups, which result from the dual structure of urban and rural areas, make pensionproblem seriously family-orienting and insufficient social support outside the family.Unbalanced economy brings about different pension demands among theempty-nesters of different areas: what the eastern empty-nesters need more is themental requirement since the countrysides there have comparatively completeendowment service facilities; the central and western empty-nesters face morefinancial problems since their life is seriously short of assistance and disease-caring.This thesis presents the support to the rural empty-nesters provided by families,communities and governments and draws a conclusion that the majority of the elderrely on their own labor for the life needs, even for the family expenses since theirfamily members do not care about them because of the time and space. Lacking ofcare from their hiring-out children and to resolve the pension risks, those elders would like to spontaneously seek neighborhoods’ support on the basis of the blood andgeopolitical relations of the community. But this kind of support is transient andtemporary. Due to the rationalization of interpersonal relation and marginalization ofthe old, the rural community organization do not play an effective role. Bias in systemleads to less invest from the government. In addition, the rural pension system has notbeen completely established with less coverage and low security, thus those elderswho have children and a family originally can not be included. To solve the aboveissues, this thesis, which is based on social support theory, raises a proposal to set upa support net for the old-age through developing Network supportive ability andfeasibility. Since the community is based on blood and geopolitical relation, it isimportant and possible in filling in the daily-caring and spiritual-comfort gaps. For afamily-based country, this kind of support network, which links up precious localresources with social security concept, is an optional and realistic pension stretegy forresolving the pension risk of those empty-nesters.