Search Results (33)

With the growing trend of population mobility and the aging process in China, a significant number of accompanying elderly migrants have moved to major cities. However, in community public spaces, the behavioral differences between caregiver-oriented elderly migrants (CO-AEMs), family reunion-motivated elderly migrants (FR-AEMs), and local elderly residents hinder social interactions between these groups. This study aims to explore opportunities for cross-group social interaction within the community environment. By utilizing GPS data collection and activity log analysis, along with spatiotemporal behavioral research methods, this study reconstructs the spatiotemporal trajectories of three groups of elderly individuals. The study proposes a social interaction potential (SIP) model based on the “support-constraint” framework. Through qualitative analysis of spatiotemporal behavioral characteristics and quantitative measurement of the degree of spatiotemporal behavioral co-occurrence across four modes, this study reveals the differentiated impact mechanisms of spatial and behavioral factors on social interactions, ultimately assessing SIP in differentiated community spaces and activities. This research highlights differences across spatial, behavioral, and temporal dimensions that hinder social interactions between the groups. Spatial and behavioral differences are primarily attributable to the lifestyle habits and activity preferences of the elderly, while temporal discrepancies reflect varying degrees of family-related constraints across the different groups. Furthermore, informal community public spaces show higher SIP than formal facilities. Additionally, the similarity in behaviors across groups facilitates social interactions. FR-AEMs and local elderly residents show higher SIP in self-care behaviors, while CO-AEMs and local elderly residents demonstrate stronger SIP in behaviors related to their family and grandchildren. Based on the segmented assimilation theory, this study proposes hierarchical community governance and spatial optimization strategies for activities and spaces with different SIP. The aim is to cultivate opportunities for interaction while respecting the characteristics of accompanying elderly migrants and to foster the construction of an inclusive community environment. The findings provide theoretical support and practical pathways for community space planning and social governance in the context of an aging society. Full article

Background: Loneliness in older people, especially those living in rural areas, is a phenomenon that has received little attention in research and can have detrimental effects on quality of life. The aim of this study was to evaluate loneliness and the psychosocial factors associated with loneliness in rural Spain, which have been minimally studied. Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out in a sample of permanently resident older people in the Rincón de Ademuz region (Valencia, Spain), a geographic area with very low population density. Emotional and social loneliness were assessed using the de Jong Gierveld Loneliness Scale. We also assessed whether loneliness is associated with sleep quality, depressive symptoms, and autonomy in basic and instrumental activities of daily living. Results: A total of 108 community-dwelling individuals aged 65 years and older participated in the study out of a total sample of 181. Of them, 30.6% experienced feelings of moderate loneliness, while 2.8% presented severe loneliness. A significant correlation was found between loneliness and age (Rho = 0.28, p = 0.003). Significant differences were also observed between emotional loneliness and gender (p = 0.03) but not between social loneliness and the total score on the de Jong Gierveld Scale. Men experienced more emotional loneliness than women. In the multivariate analyses, significant associations were found between the degree of loneliness and having sons/daughters (p = 0.03; odds ratio [OR] = 0.24; 95% CI 0.06–0.89) and the role of caring for a dependent person (p = 0.002; odds ratio [OR] = 0.05; 95% CI 0.009–0.36) but not living with sons/daughters or the presence of grandchildren. Conclusions: There is a high prevalence of loneliness among older people living in rural areas, which is associated with some social factors. Therefore, nursing care plans should include assessments and interventions to prevent or detect and address loneliness in older people. This study was retrospectively registered in ClinicalTrials on 24 April 2024 with registration number NCT06382181. Full article

Kinship caregivers encounter complex issues when interfacing with the child welfare system. Most kinship care families are not connected to child welfare. The experiences and extent of child welfare connection among older grandparents raising adolescent grandchildren are understudied. This study describes in-depth reflections from older grandparents raising adolescent grandchildren about circumstances leading to kinship care and the extent of child welfare involvement. Nineteen older grandparents raising adolescent grandchildren participated in qualitative phenomenological interviews. Eligibility criteria included identifying as a primary caregiver aged 40 or older for a grandchild 12 years or older who lived with them at least three days during the week. Respondents were primarily married (58%), white/non-Hispanic (53%), and grandmothers (84%) and had some college education or were college graduates (79%). Older grandparent caregivers described three themes: the intensive child welfare path, the influence of indirect child welfare professionals, and guardians with influence. The onset of kinship care, with or without intensive child welfare involvement, stemmed primarily from child abuse and neglect linked primarily to adolescent pregnancies and parental substance use. Child welfare and other helping professionals must recognize and problem-solve with older grandparent caregivers to meet complex stage-of-life needs in and outside of traditional child welfare settings. Full article

Grandparental care of grandchildren is a prevalent social phenomenon. This study explores the perceptions of health-related quality of life of grandparents caring for their grandchildren. A mixed methods design was developed. In the first phase, participants were interviewed using a baseline questionnaire. The second phase consisted of focus groups with 19 of the 100 participants in the quantitative phase. The scores obtained from the quantitative analysis are in line with the qualitative data; they reflect that grandparent carers who are more involved in the care of their grandchildren have more symptoms of depression and stress and have poorer perceptions of physical health-related quality of life. What may at first appear to be a positive aspect, keeping grandparent carers active, can become negative when it comes to shared care and when the grandparents’ willingness to provide care is abused. Full article

Intergenerational leisure can be a tool to stimulate and reinforce the learning of primary school students. The aim of this study was to examine which leisure activities shared by grandparents and their grandchildren are carried out from the perception of intergenerational learning as one of the main reasons for joint practice, and its link with the grandparents’ level of education. An ad hoc questionnaire was administered to 329 students aged 6 to 12 years in the north of Spain, and a descriptive study and inferential analysis of the data were carried out. The leisure activities that students highlight the most as experiences in which they perceive that by sharing them with their grandparents, they learn from them, are board games, artistic activities, caring for plants or gardens and reading. There are only significant differences in the learning perceived by primary school students depending on the level of education of their grandparents in caring for plants or vegetable gardens, as the grandparents of children aged 6 to 12 in the northern part of Spain are more able to teach their grandchildren to care for plants or vegetable gardens when their level of education is primary education. These four activities highlighted by the grandchildren as facilitators of knowledge are very interesting instruments to stimulate and reinforce the education of primary school students, so involving grandparents in their grandchildren’s education and taking advantage of their knowledge and experience, as well as their ability to stimulate their grandchildren, is a good strategy to turn free time into valuable leisure time. Full article

Informal kinship care families in Australia are a large, hidden population. This article provides an overview of international research and policy developments regarding informal kinship care and considers their relevance to Australia. The benefit to children is identified along with the severe economic burden of care falling on caregiving families. Australian Federal and State policy settings are described in relation to the recognition and support of informal kinship care families, and an overwhelming need for better financial and social support is identified. Ways forward to improve the circumstances of these families are considered, together with areas for future research. Full article

This qualitative study examined the prevalence of the “Nine Ds,” a framework developed by Edwards and Benson for understanding the heterogeneity of reasons for which grandparents assume care of grandchildren (i.e., death, disease, detention, divorce, departure, drugs, desertion, delivery, deployment) in a contemporary sample. Using a nationwide sample of custodial grandparents (N = 322) and foster parents (N = 105), caregivers were asked their reason for assuming care of the grandchild or foster child within their care. The results of the study suggest that the Nine Ds are a useful framework, but accounted for only 21.74% of responses, indicating the Nine Ds fail to capture many of the reasons for assuming care. Three new themes—dollars, duty, and daily grind—were identified using semantic thematic analysis and are applicable to both grandfamilies and foster families. These themes represent different motivations for assuming care and provide insight into the social structures that may act as barriers to family formation. This study provides a foundation for future research examining the impact of assumed care by non-parental attachment figures on the health and well-being of both grandchildren and foster children. Full article

Many factors are considered vital in supporting successful ageing and older adults’ wellbeing. Whilst evidence exists around facilitating and hindering factors in the general use of various forms of institutional and family support and personal development-oriented education and/or new technologies, evidence is limited with regards to older people’s motivations, expectations, and experiences surrounding ageing. Hence, in this study, the author used a qualitative explanatory method to interpret the factors influencing seniors’ successful ageing. The author’s focus was on how seniors experience ageing. The second issue was how they have been organizing life in old age. The third point concerned their expectations towards ageing now and in the future. Thirteen older adults (60+) were interviewed nationwide using a semi-structured scenario tool. Their objective was to give rich descriptions of their experiences of ageing. The interviews revealed the older adults’ own experiences and enabled an understanding of their motivations, perceptions, moderators, and expectations around successful ageing. Based on the analysis of the qualitative data, the author developed three main themes, each with its own sub-themes: 1. Life satisfaction (transitioning to retirement, using coping strategies in adaptation to negative changes, reaching personal goals, leading a meaningful life); 2. Supportive environments (being independent but using temporary assistance from relatives and/or people close to oneself, living with family members (e.g., husband or wife, children, grandchildren), having access to health care system); 3. Social integration (social relations, social engagement, independence in using technological advancements). The main categories that emerged from the three themes were social networks, new technologies, and wellbeing. To analyze these issues, the author used a sociological approach. The theoretic explorations were embedded mainly in two methods: criticism of writing and the analytical and comparative one. Full article

Considering our aging society and declining birthrate, we studied the motivations for intergenerational care for the elderly in China and analyze it through different generations of children and grandchildren. This paper mainly uses logistic regression analysis, descriptive statistics, heterogeneity analysis, robustness analysis, and other quantitative methods to analyze the data of the China Household Tracking Survey (CFPS) in 2018. According to the relevant research results, we believe that both children or grandchildren may be motivations. However, the proportion of factors is higher because the proportion of parents choosing alternate-generation care has increased based on the financial support provided by their children, and underdeveloped children are more likely to be favored by their parents to provide alternate-generation care. This paper is more inclined to consider children to be the main motivator for intergenerational care under the dual motives of “feedback” exchange and altruism through “helping the weak”. Next, the influence factors of a series of control variables are analyzed for the groups that take care of the next generation, and it is found that the intimacy between the elderly and their spouses, the number of meals with their families per week, and the use of electronic products will all affect the degree of care provided by their fathers. Based on this, this paper proposes that the three forces of government, society, and family are needed for joint support of the elderly when they are taking care of each other. We will make generational care less responsible, free and burdensome, and at the same time respect the right of the elderly to say “no” to providing care. Full article

In the context of the deepening of population aging and the trial implementation of a progressive retirement delay policy in China, understanding the relationship between the labor force participation and health status of the elderly will not only enrich relevant research but also help the elderly better achieve their goals of active aging and aging. Using the 2018 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, this paper first established multiple linear regression models to analyze the impact of labor force participation on the health status of elderly people in China and then established simultaneous equation models using households living on minimum living allowances and the community average of labor participation as instrumental variables to deal with the endogeneity caused by two-way causality. The findings confirmed significant positive correlations between labor force participation and physical and mental health, while caring for grandchildren and participating in social activities were found to be negatively moderated the relationship between labor force participation and the physical and mental health of older adults. The impact of labor force participation on the physical health status of older men and the mental health status of older women may be greater. In addition, labor force participation may have a greater impact on the physical health of the rural elderly, and its impact on mental health was not found to be statistically significant between urban and rural areas. Full article

The Mediterranean diet (MD), a well-established quality diet model, and regular physical activity are associated with reducing the appearance or progression of several chronic diseases and reducing morbidity and mortality. However, reduction of these goals, adherence to the MD, and regular physical activity occur at all ages, including older individuals in Mediterranean countries such as Spain, where at least adherence to the MD is culturally rooted. Objective: To evaluate the degree of adherence to the MD and physical activity in older individuals. Methods: The sample comprises 679 older adults aged 60 and over who attended activities in municipal centers for older adults in Valencia. Adherence to the Mediterranean diet, frequency of physical activity, and anthropometric assessment were used. Results: High adherence (score ≥ 9) to MD was observed only in 23.7% of the study sample. Smoking habits or having meals in fast-food restaurants on a weekly basis were significantly (p < 0.05) associated with lower MD adherence. Age, BMI, marital status, and physical activity were not significantly associated with MD adherence. Physical activity was significantly (p < 0.05) lower in individuals who were divorced or widow/ers and in those taking care of their grandchildren several times a week. Conclusions: Adherence to the MD in a big Spanish city is low among older individuals. Socio-family factors seem to play a role. Public health and governmental strategies should reinforce adherence to the MD among older individuals as a gold standard for nutrition. Full article

This study explored the relationship between health service utilization, informal social support and depression, anxiety and stress among the internal migrant elderly following children (IMEFC) in Weifang, China. A total of 613 IMEFC were selected using multistage cluster random sampling. The Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale 21 (DASS-21) was used to assess the depression, anxiety and stress of the IMEFC. Descriptive analysis and univariate and binary logistic regression analyses were used to clarify the correlation between health service utilization and social support and depression, anxiety and stress of the IMEFC. The prevalence of depression, anxiety and stress of the IMEFC was 6.9%, 7.7% and 3.4%, respectively. Logistic regression analysis showed that the IMEFC who having financial stress on medical costs were more likely to feel depressed than those haven’t financial stress on medical costs (OR = 6.557), while those unemployed and having no income were less likely to feel depressed than those employed (OR = 0.262), having children support were less likely to feel depressed than those haven’t children support (OR = 0.257) and having comfort support were less likely to feel depressed than haven’t comfort support (OR = 0.018). Trans-city migration were more likely to feel anxious than trans-county migration (OR = 3.198), having outpatient service were more likely to feel anxious than haven’t experienced inpatient service (OR = 3.818), having financial stress on medical costs were more likely to feel anxious than haven’t financial stress on medical costs (OR = 3.726), while having children support were less likely to feel anxious than haven’t children support (OR = 0.198). Those who migrate to cure disease or rehabilitation were more likely to feel stressed than those migrated to taking care of grandchildren (OR = 12.702) and having financial stress on medical costs were more likely to feel stressed than haven’t financial stress on medical costs (OR = 32.155), while having children support were less likely to feel stressed than haven’t children support (OR = 0.055) and having economic support in troubles were less likely to feel stressed than haven’t economic support in troubles (OR = 0.012). More effective measures should be taken to improve the accessibility and efficiency of cross-regional health insurance reimbursement, and family members should spend more time with the IMEFC to lower their psychological tension in a new environment. Full article

Despite the Korean government’s investment in childcare facilities for dual-earner households, maternal grandmothers are increasingly taking on the responsibility of caring for their grandchildren. This trend is examined in the current research. While many studies have been conducted on grandparents’ experiences providing childcare for their grandchildren, significantly less research has been conducted on adult daughters’ experiences with their mothers’ childcare provision. This study utilized the concepts of intergenerational solidarity and a life-course approach to understand the experiences of 24 working adult daughters in Korea (ages 30–43) whose mothers provide childcare. Three major themes were identified following a grounded theory approach: gratitude vs. guilt, dependence vs. independence, and closeness vs. disagreement. The results indicated that adult daughters were found to have ambivalence toward their mothers, reflecting the lack of alternative options for childcare. The results from this study suggest that not only improving the quality of public childcare services, but also diversifying services to reflect the needs of dual-income families. Full article

The purpose of this paper was to better understand the long-term care preferences of older people based on intergenerational demonstration effects and social exchange theory, derived from the literature on intergenerational family relationships. The authors relied on the 2014 China Longitudinal Ageing Social Survey database to test the study hypotheses. The results indicated that living with grandchildren was negatively related to the institutional care preferences of older people. Family members’ attitudes and older people’s life satisfaction significantly mediated the relationship between living with grandchildren and their institutional care preferences. Gender and marital status had potentially diverse effects on institutional care preferences. Therefore, in the context of China’s culture of filial piety, social exchange, and intergenerational demonstration, motivation may help foster intergenerational exchange and reciprocity in eldercare arrangements. Full article

As urbanization is growing quickly in China, many migrant elderly following children (MEFC) migrate to big cities to care for their grandchildren (grandchildren of MEFC=GMEFC). This study aimed to explore the effects of the living environment, health statuses of family members, and MEFC’s attitude regarding the care of their children (children of MEFC=CMEFC) for their GMEFC on GMEFC’s health statuses in Weifang, China. Multistage cluster random sampling was used to select the participants, and 613 MEFC were included in total. Descriptive analysis, univariate analysis and binary logistic regression were used to investigate the association between the related variables and GMEFC’s health statuses. It was found that 74.9% of the GMEFC had excellent health statuses. The GMEFC who had siblings, the CMEFC with excellent health statuses, and the MEFC with excellent health statuses were more likely to have excellent health statuses. Moreover, the GMEFC who were female, elevators occasionally malfunctioned, the MEFC who were dissatisfied with the CMEFC’s time spent on caring, and the MEFC who did not understand or forgive the CMEFC’s limited time on caring were less likely to have GMEFC with excellent health statuses. The results indicated that a better living environment, better health statuses of family members, and a positive attitude of the MEFC regarding the care of CMEFC for GMEFC would result in a better health status of GMEFC. Full article