Research On The Support For Elderly Urban Bereaved Parents Of Only Child

With the scale of the only children continues to expand, the number of those whodied accidentally has also increased, leading to the emergence of numerous familieswhich lost their only child. Now the first generation of urban bereaved parents has begunto enter the old age stage. As a result, the supporting risks they faced will graduallytransform into realistic difficulties. And we need to pay more attention. With17bereavedparents of only child in Wuhan City as the object of the research, based onsemi-structured interview and participant observation, this thesis conducted anexploration research on their supporting issues. Other than previous studies from theaspect of Institution, this research focused on the individual level. As what the authorassumed, bereaved parents have a more accurate understanding of their own situation.This thesis mainly introduced the bereaved parents’ current supporting situation andworries, and summarized two major elderly-supporting manners at the same time. Fromthe economic point of view, all of the bereaved parents who retired from enterprises orpublic institutions have a fixed pension income, which mea ns the satisfaction of theirbasic needs is not a problem. Some families in better condition even could haveadditional spiritual consumption. From the mental aspect, as the psychological blow ishuge, the bereaved parents tend to be very self-abased and autistic. However, the situationwill be improved with the change of time and the intervention of outside helping methods.As for the life care, bereaved parents of only child can still take care of themselves at themoment, and support from the spouse also plays an important role, yet the life care issuesin an advanced age will be very tricky. From the medical point of view, most of thebereaved parents feel apprehension, not only for the high costs of treatment, but also thehealth care after disease and operation-signature. These phenomena are particularlyevident in the cases which the family structure has further disintegrated. In response to these circumstances, the bereaved parents have got certain pension plans. Those parentsbeing deeply involved in the group of people who lost their only child tend to choose thecentralized and home-based care system. While others prefer the method of familysupport, as they own a broader social support network. They will largely rely onthemselves or their spouses and relatives.At last, combined with the author’s personal understanding, some suggestions whichconcern our government and the bereaved parents have been given. The author hopesthese suggestions could be helpful to solve the bereaved parents’ supporting problem.