Evolving Eldercare in Contemporary China

Abstract

Asia has been the new focus of global social sciences. One of the key features for the rise of Asia is the creation of the largest industrial workforce in the human history. China, India and many other newly industrialized countries in Asia have been transformed as 'world factories' for the global capitalism in the past four decades. This development involves both extensive and intensive migration of labour across Asia. Massive populations in the Asian countries, who formerly involved in traditional self-subsistence activities, have become wage labourers. In China itself, more than 260 million of rural-urban migrant labours have been created in the past three decades. The production and the reproduction of labour in Asia have therefore become the major research themes in a wide range of disciplines such as gender studies, development studies, policies studies, employment relations, human resource management, legal studies as well as sociology, politics and anthropology.More information about this series at

Depression, sleep problems, and perceived stress among informal caregivers in 58 low-, middle-, and high-income countries: A cross-sectional analysis of community-based surveys

“…Although the reason for this is not clear, several hypotheses may be proposed. For example, factors such as fewer siblings to share the workload of caring for the parents (Chen, 2016), and longer life with disability among care recipients in HICs (GBD 2015 DALYs and HALE Collaborators, 2016), which can result in more intense caregiving activities, may underlie our findings. Indeed, in a previous multicountry study, the prevalence of family health problems, and family burden (time, financial, distress) due to caregiving was higher in HICs compared to LMICs (Viana et al, 2013).…”

From Village Commons to Public Goods

“…This is explicit government policy in line with the resurgence of state-sponsored Confucianism, and is probably intended to reduce the state's burden of caring for seniors in an aging population (Yang 2016;Feng 2017). At the same time, accelerated urbanization and demographic pressures, amplifi ed by the now-abandoned one-child policy, undermine norms of family care and lead to reinterpretations of fi lial piety, at the same time as the ability to pay for the high cost of professional care in institutions is becoming a social privilege (Zhan and Montgomery 2003;Zhan, Feng, and Luo 2008;Chen 2016). In addition, the economic slowdown has turned the seniors care service sector into a new growth engine, in which real estate and insurance companies have invested, with policy support from the State Council's "Opinions Regarding Speeding Up the Development of Seniors Care Service Sector," issued in 2013 (Strauss and Xu 2018).…”