Hong Kong Chinese aging adults voice financial care expectations in changing family and sociocultural contexts: implications for policy and services

ABSTRACT

Despite being one of the world’s wealthiest cities, approximately one-third of Hong Kong older adults live below the poverty line. Innovatively using the Photovoice research method, this study invited 36 Hong Kong Chinese aging adults to photograph images and voice their concerns and expectations regarding financial care. Insufficient government support, diminishing family support, insecurity and fear regarding future finances, and strong desire for self-sufficiency through early preparation and bridge employment were recurring themes observed in the participants’ photographs and narratives. The shifting of the participants’ financial care expectations from informal to formal sources in changing family and sociocultural contexts indicated that older people are in urgent need of policy reform from a needs-based to rights-based approach to foster empowerment and fulfill older people’s rights of financial security, dignity and participation. Improving the retirement protection system should go hand in hand with encouraging family support and caregiving and creating age-friendly working environment for older residents. The findings of this study may have crucial policy implications for Hong Kong and other aging societies, especially those that share similar filial piety values and have seemingly ungenerous welfare systems.

KEYWORDS:

• Care expectations
• older Chinese
• poverty
• Photovoice
• retirement protection policy

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank all the study participants for their time and effort and Ms. Chang Liu, Ms. Tinky Ho, and Ms. Juan Wang for their assistance in various stages of this project. I really appreciate the fruitful and interesting discussions with Professor Robert Walker, Professor Nelson Chow and Professor Daniel Lai on old age poverty issues and innovative methods in gerontology research. I am also very grateful to the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions.

Disclosure

This study was accepted for an e-poster presentation on interim findings at the at the International Federation of Ageing 13th Global Conference: Disasters in an Ageing World in June 2016 and later for a poster presentation at the 21st IAGG World Congress of Gerontology and Geriatrics in July 2017.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (Reference No. G-UA6X & G-YBRW) and the General Research Fund-Early Career Scheme sponsored by the Research Grant Council (Reference No. 25608915) of Hong Kong.