Research on the System of Long-Term Family Support for the Disabled Elderly in China

Background:

The long-term family support is widely used by the disabled elderly in China. As the group of the disabled elderly expands, the problems of long-term family support become obvious.

Method:

Both quantitative and qualitative methods are used in this research. It combines the original data of Beijing of the “Second National Survey on the Disabled” with the records of indoor intensive interviews with 28 disabled senior citizens in Beijing and Wuhan city.

Result:

(1) Family support is of vital importance for the disabled elderly in China. There are five characteristics of the family support: family-orientation, structure of grade, complexity, concentration and long-term.

(2) The “family-orientation” depicts that most disabled senior citizens prefer family support due to the reason of income, filial piety, and the distrust of the non-family members. The “structure of grade” defines the relationship between the caregivers and the disabled elderly. The caregivers are mainly spouses, sons and daughters. The “complexity” means the family support is characterized by the core of “disability”. Thus, we have to take various patterns of the family support due to the complexity of the disability. The “concentration” depicts the contents of the family support for the disabled elderly, which can be summarized as the basic support, daily living support, mental support and so on. The “long-term” means the family support is a hard and long lasting task.

(3) The defects of the family support are low-level quality, instability, negative influences on the children and so on. In order to solve these problems, we have to develop other forms of support, such as community and institution support.