Relative expectations in rural China: Later-life distinction, duty, dreams, and discontent

Beginning in 2010, the proportion of the Chinese population over age 65 is expected to increase rapidly until it comprises 20 percent of the population in 2025 and over 30 percent of the population by 2050. China is unique not only in terms of the speed with which its age structure is changing, but because it is still a developing nation. Its infrastructure is less equipped to meet the growing demands of an older population than are the developed infrastructures of other aging nations.;Most of the discussion about the relationship between China's aging and China's economic and social transformations has remained at a macro level, based only on "expert" perspectives and expectations for the future. This research inquires into the experiences, viewpoints, and expectations of older villagers. The dissertation is based on a six-month mixed-methods study in "Seven Mountains," a village of three hamlets in southwestern Fujian Province. Informed by a critical-gerontological theoretical framework, it investigates two central issues: (1) how older women's and older men's lives shape and are shaped by China's rural changes and economic development; and (2) what elders expect of later life in developing rural China.;I found that elders' understandings of past, present, and future rural changes were strongly shaped by their life experiences of hardship. I argue that a sense of increasing relative wealth (across time) countered a sense of relative poverty (across place) and mitigated the discontent which older villagers felt in witnessing the greater wealth of nearby hamlets, villages, or of international peers. The relative wealth of current life also helped to counter the negative effects of village industry, as well as the perceived failure of village development to specifically benefit elders as a group. In general, "offsets" or a lack thereof were key to shaping elders' experiences of aging, social change, and development.;I observed Seven Mountains elders playing important, albeit indirect, roles in households and the village. But because elders understood "development" mainly in economic terms, they did not see themselves to be contributing to village development or even to households. I suggest that elders' perceived lack of contribution to their communities and households was an extension of the "invisibility" of "women's work." Additionally, the tendency to compare current work loads to those of the difficult past resulted in elders minimizing the extent to which they were contributing now within and around households.;From this particular "ground-level," rapid aging of the population failed to be a source of concern for elders, and instead often engendered optimism about longevity amidst the companionship of one's peers. This discrepancy between "expert" and "village" viewpoints demonstrates how interpretations of demographic conditions are shaped by social locations. Moreover, the case of Seven Mountains showed on a small scale how economic development is not sufficient to guarantee the well-being of elders. Rather, economic growth and new wealth have promoted perceptions of increased inequalities as well as attitudes about "deserving" and "undeserving" poor.