Ageing in place in Hong Kong -- challenges and opportunities in a capitalist Chinese city

In 1997, Hong Kong was returned to China, but it has retained its capitalist socio-economic order under the socialist People’s Republic. It is a Chinese city in which ethnic Chinese constitute a majority of the population. Like other advanced economies, Hong Kong has a gradually ageing population. The virtue of respecting the older people, as a facet of traditional Chinese normative order, is facing challenges from rapid social changes. Urban development has posed a considerable threat to implementing the policy of ‘ageing in place’. Divergent paths are being taken in the public and private sectors respectively in the effort to enable older people to remain living in familiar physical and social environments. Market forces in private sector redevelopment usually bring about gentrification, which results in the dislocation of older people. In the public sector, massive public housing programmes can be beneficial to older people affected by redevelopment by permitting in-situ relocation. The government’s community care policy also helps to achieve ageing-in-place. This paper provides an account and analysis of the challenges and opportunities in accomplishing the principle of ageing-in-place in the capitalist Chinese city of Hong Kong.postprin

Factors affecting long-term care use in Hong Kong

Key Messages: 1. Psychological factors play the most significant role in contributing to long-term care choices. Older people’s positive attitude towards community care services (CCS) and strong structural solidarity of the family are two key factors. 2. Stronger family structural solidarity is associated with the use of CCS, whereas family structural solidarity tends to be confined to nuclear families rather than intergenerational families, which implies that spouse and children caregivers have different needs. Caregiver support services targeting the elderly couple’s families and children as caregivers should be differentiated and more specifically targeted. 3. In general, CCS serve frail elders with acute rehabilitation needs, who are more likely to be cared for by family members and/or domestic helpers, whereas residential care services serve frail elders with a higher level of cognitive impairment.published_or_final_versio

Caring for our seniors: private issue or public? The Asian scene

The author put forward a framework in which the five domains of care needs of older people, that is, financial security, health and personal care, housing, psychosocial emotional care and seniors as 'resources', should be provided with a shared responsibility between public and private domains. The public domain denotes the State's indispensable role in developing viable legislations and policies, whereas the private domain refers to the market, the community, as well as the family and the individual. The five actors play their respective roles in attending to the specific needs of older people when they enter a different life stage that incurs physical, psychological and socio-economic changes. Relevant examples and issues arising from the various Asian countries/regions, including China, Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, Korea and Hong Kong, would be cited. © 2012 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.link_to_subscribed_fulltex

Policy considerations in long-term care in Hong Kong

Co-organized by Department of Social Work and Social Administration, Sau Po Centre on Ageing, Centre for Health Promotion, Department of Nursing, the University of Hong Kon