Depleted by dependence or imprisoned by independence? Cases of China’s aging in place

ABSTRACT

Aging in place (AIP) aims to relieve public resource depletion by enabling older adults to live independently at home without dependence on nursing facilities. However, it leads to frustration due to inadequate homecare. Despite the response of aged care providers by increasing community services and manpower, it goes against the original intention of AIP policies. The debate over AIP on how to avoid the dilemma between ‘depleted by dependence’ and ‘imprisoned by independence’ is still wide open. The following paper attempts to use a synthetic literature review to establish a theoretical understanding of what AIP categories might help in this dilemma. Four cases of China’s AIP are then tested. It is concluded that China has different logics behind its AIP in terms of different combinations of hedonic wellbeing, eudaimonic wellbeing, passive avoidance of dependent facility and active participation in life, leading to prescriptions markedly distinctive from the literature to get the most out of aging at home and in community.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. ‘Passive avoidance’ is a notion borrowed from APA Dictionary of Psychology being compared to an operant conditioning in which older adults avoid socially isolated feeling and/or loss of independence by not moving to nursing homes and inhibiting worsening/inconvenient living conditions through passive assistance (i.e., not doing anything but being helped by an external object or force like assisted living residence and/or outdoor barrier-free service).

2. Sourced from the website of Tseung Kwan O Aged Care Complex, https://www.skhwc.org.hk/en/services/main/4/?sub_id=124.

3. The information about the program is partly sourced from the interview with the Director of Caritas Macau, Paul Chi Meng Pun on February 9, 2021.