A Study On Community Participation Of The City Elderly

With the accelerated aging process and the social environment of "not rich,oldfirst",increasing elderly people as a social group cannot be ignored in urbanizationprocess.Understanding their life situation from helping them get rid of the social alienationand no sense of worth,relying on community to improve the participation level of theelderly.It has a important significance of the elderly self-realization and communitydemocratic construction.At the same time, It’s a feasible path to promote the development ofproductive aging.This study is based on the theory of participatory development,using qualitative researchmethod.Based on the In-depth interview of17elderly people from H community inJinan,found that the condition of the social participation is not very optimistic.In addition tothe willingness of participation is not obvious, involved in small,It’s characterized by a lowlevel of participate in the content and the way.On this basis,Summarizing the problems ofelderly community participation and analyzing the reason from the level of community andindividual.In the community level,interviewed the elderly think that community activities are rigid,including the administrativization of management system,demand response channels arestuffed, activity content is one-sided and lack of innovation,the amateur service of staff,theunsound activities of the security and the backward institutions.Analyzed the reasons,believethat it’s has a great influence of the "official standard",the service consciousness is weak,thedivision of labor in the multiple community organizations are unclear,the opportunity toparticipate in the supply can not meet the demand,the elderly participation is unaccepted inthe the community public opinion,because of the traditional family values andstereotypes.They were all limited the activities of the old people’s participation behavior.Inthe individual level,there are some problems,including the deviation of subjectiveunderstanding,the size of participation is small and loose,lack of systematic organization, theparticipate content is simple and the level is uneven,the time is short and volatility.Analyzedthe reason,besides the physical conditions and economic conditions,the weakened sense andresponsibility of community,reducing the development of self-confidence,lack awareness of self experience and ability,all of these are the reasons of the problems.There is a new starting point to deal with the elderly community participationissues,using empowerment and self empowerment concept of participatory development topromote productive aging of community,let the community to promote the democratic processby use the output efficiency from the elderly.At the same time,the elderly can achieve selfdevelopment from the community.Community should reform the management system andenhance service awareness,using the approach to empower the elderly,open channels,rich incontent,innovation incentive method,optimization method for the community publicopinion,let them have the security,support to participate in the activities of communitymanagement.in additions,the economic and contribution benefits from elderly will have aconstruction of the community.While the old man should re-recognize the correct view ofself-worth,improve the sense and responsibility of community, rich in content,developing theinterest groups,obtaining the community status,learning skills,enhanceself-confidence,achieve the new output to their ability.