Research On The Willingness Of Rural Residents In Shandong Province To Participate In The Elderly And Their Improvement Co-untermeasures

The proportion of the elderly aged 65 and above in Shandong Province in 2022 was16.72%,higher than the national average,with an increase of 0.8 percentage points compared to 2021.The aging problem is becoming increasingly serious.The focus and difficulty of the elderly care problem lies in rural areas,and the contradiction between aging and elderly care resources is increasingly prominent.It is urgent to explore a new rural elderly care model.Rural mutual assistance for the elderly is a new type of elderly care method,which is based on family resources and social resources,with the family as the main body,supported by social mutual assistance,guaranteed by policy support,and supported by social ethics.Implementing mutual assistance for the elderly in rural areas is conducive to improving the quality of life of the elderly in rural areas and promoting the development of rural society.Firstly,the paper analyzes the current development situation of rural mutual pension in Shandong Province,and finds that there are three main modes of rural mutual pension in Shandong Province: mutual pension welfare home,time bank,and basic mutual assistance.Compared to the national development trend,Shandong Province started relatively late,and there are some problems such as imbalance between supply and demand,lack of professionals,leading to low willingness of rural residents to participate in mutual pension.In order to better improve the willingness of rural residents in Shandong Province to participate in mutual support for the elderly,this study used field survey data from 16 cities in Shandong Province,using a binary logistic regression model to explore the influencing factors of rural residents’ willingness to participate in mutual support for the elderly from four aspects: individual characteristics,family characteristics,rural residents’ perception,and community support.It found that physical condition,education level,residential status,number of children The frequency of children’s visits,the significance of neighborhood emotional depth,annual income,sources of elderly care,perceived external environment(mutual care facilities),loneliness,satisfaction with basic medical insurance for urban and rural residents,understanding of mutual care,recognition of mutual care,receiving professional knowledge training,and community support factors will have a significant impact on the willingness of rural residents in Shandong Province to provide mutual care elderly care services;Physical condition,living conditions,frequency of children’s visits,depth of neighborhood affection,perception of external environment(mutual care elderly care places),loneliness,approval of the concept of "raising children and preventing aging",understanding of mutual care elderly care,recognition of mutual care elderly care,and community support will have a significant impact on the willingness of rural residents in Shandong Province to receive assistance for mutual care elderly care.Based on the above analysis,this study believes that improving the willingness of rural residents to participate in mutual assistance for the elderly should start from two aspects: one is to solve the current problems in rural mutual assistance for the elderly in Shandong Province,and the other is to promote the willingness of rural residents to participate in mutual assistance for the elderly through factors that significantly affect the willingness of rural residents to participate in mutual assistance for the elderly.Therefore,based on the principle of combining government and community,and combining people-oriented and party building guidance,this article proposes strategies to enhance the willingness of rural residents in Shandong Province to participate in mutual assistance and elderly care from both community and government levels.