Graduate Assistant State University of New York, University at Albany, United States
Overview: Because of the serious aging problem and limited research exploring the impacts on the preferences of aging in community from the perspective of social capital, it will be helpful for understanding community environment characteristics and their impact on aging in community from both micro and meso levels through this study.Proposal text: Purposes This study is going to explore the deep relationship between social capital and the preferences of aging in the community for the older residents who live in Yuexiu District, Guangzhou City, understand characteristics of community environment and their impact on aging in the community from both micro and meso levels, further our understanding of vulnerability for older generation so that social work practices can be improved based on voices of them.
Research Questions and Hypothesis Based upon the inadequacy of existing long-term care services in China, this study seeks to fill gaps in the existing literature by addressing four questions: Q1. Does the existing government policy/services support aging in the community? Q2. Does family social capital support/influence the older person's choice to age in the community? Q3. Does community social capital support/influence the older person's choice to age in the community? Q4. Does the combination of community and family social capital will influence the older adult’s decision to age in the community? Based on the former studies about the association between social capital and aging in place, we assume that: H1. The current level of community-based services does NOT adequately support older adults aging in the community. H2. Lower social capital/financial status of the family will result in no support for parents to age in the community. H3. Higher community capital (both cognitive social capital and structural social capital) status of the community will result in better support for older parents to age in the community. H4. Both community and family social capital is positively correlated with the preferences of the elderly to participate in aging in the community.
Research Design A cross-sectional research design will be implemented in this study. The target population of this study is the elderly residents over 60 years old in Yuexiu District, Guangzhou City. This study will use a quota sampling method to select participants. 500 respondents aged 60 or older from ten streets of Yuexiu District will be included; each street contains 50 respondents. Communities will be selected from these ten streets, then 50 participants will be randomly selected from each community selected. Data will be derived from a community paper survey conducted in person by researchers from the school of Social Welfare of the University at Albany.
Dependent variable: aging in community preference.
Independent variable: social capital characteristics. Social capital will be measured from two sources: family social capital, structural social capital and cognitive social capital.
Control variables. Control variables include their age, gender, education level, marital status, whether they own a private house, income level and the number of their family members.
Data Analysis This survey data will contain both social demographic information and social capital part. A descriptive analysis to describe individual’s demographic information such as age, gender, education level will be first conducted. Except for the descriptive characteristics of those older adults, logistic regression will be used to analyze the association between aging in community preference and social capital measurements.
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