Research On The Spiritual Endowment For The Rural Empty Nest Elderly

Rapid population aging, reduction of family size and urbanization give birth to anew large group——the rural empty nest elderly. In recent years, with the constantimprovement of the new rural social pension insurance and the new rural cooperativemedical system, basic material life of the rural empty nest elderly can be guaranteed.However, the satisfaction of spiritual need become a luxury for the rural empty nestelderly due to absence of their children and severe lack of spiritual services in ruralcommunity and so on. The spiritual endowment problem of the rural empty nestelderly is becoming increasingly prominent.Based on social support theory, data of the Chinese Longitudinal HealthyLongevity Survey (CLHLS) in2008and materials of case interview, this paperanalyses support condition in spiritual endowment of the rural empty nest elderlycombining quantitative research with qualitative research from three aspects ofspiritual autotrophy, informal support, formal support. In spiritual autotrophy: therural empty nest elderly lack awareness of spiritual autotrophy, they have somepsychological problems and their loneliness have differences in groups；in informalsupport: spouse’s emotional support plays an important role, children lack spiritualsolace to parents, other relatives fail to play the role of the family solace, and thesupport of friends or neighbors are just complementary and emergency; in formalsupport: there are no spiritual services and facilities in rural community, governmentpolicies in material endowment are imperfect and policies in spiritual endowmentare absent.Finally, this paper analyzes the feasibility in constructing spiritual endowmentsupport system for the rural empty nest elderly and proposes framework design of thesystem. It mainly includes three levels: the rural empty nest elderly, informal supportand formal support. Among them, spiritual autotrophy of the rural empty nest elderlyis the key, family members are irreplaceable force, other relatives, friends andneighbors are important supplement, community is important to rely on, andgovernment is the macroscopical guide and policy supporter. It is important to notethat we must adjust measures to local conditions step by step in the constructionprocess.