Comparative Analysis Widowed Elderly Needs And Support Under The Urbanization

The urbanization of China has brought about many social changes, such asthe enhancement of liquidity and diversity for community population, theweakening influence of traditional culture, the complicated division of labor insociety and the development of science and technology. The aged tendency ofpopulation is simultaneous with Chinese urban development and construction,and widowed seniors take account for some proportion among the agingpopulation. After losing the supports of their spouse, widowed seniors have to faceall kinds of challenges and opportunities brought by urbanization by themselves.In this article, based on both problem and advantage views, the observationand unstructured interview methods were utilized for widowed seniors of Hefeiand Huainan, Anhui province, and it found that most widowed seniors facedself-poverty and outside discrimination. At the same time, some competentwidowed seniors tended to become a kind of cohesive force for their children’sfamily and create invisible value on the wealth, meanwhile, they were thepotential stabilizing force of the community. As the witnesses of Chinesereformation and development, widowed seniors were also historical andtraditional culture’s heirs and communicators.Widowed seniors have demands including the health, maintaining basic life,social interaction, to be respected and self-value realization. The implementationof social security policies like medical insurance guarantees widowed seniors’daily life to a certain extent, moreover, lots of widowed seniors experienced theperiod of food shortage; therefore they are easy to be satisfied with the materialneeds. However, the narrowing of the interaction scope caused by urbanizationand the speeding up life pace make the desire of social interaction and respectrequirement to be insatiable. At the present stage, influenced by the traditionalculture, children’s pressure and self-experiences, just a small number of widowedseniors choose to remarry or institutions for old-age care. Whether these twodemands change or not with the city development and under the culture tolerance background will still be a consideration in the future.Social work should put more efforts toward widowed seniors. It’s importantto establish professional social workers team in this stage. In addition, to establishthe corresponding support system according to the widowed seniors’ demands isnecessary. When comes to the community construction, perfecting home andinstitutional elderly-supporting form and providing supports for widowed seniorscommunity interaction need be considered. Furthermore, social protection policyis the most powerful environment support for widowed seniors.