Empty Nesters Community Care Social Support

From the theoretical perspective of social capital and social support, the research was conducted on 102 empty nest senior citizens over 60 years old living in the communities on East Guannan Street in Xi'an with the method of questionnaire survey and case interviews. According to the research, the thesis describes and analyzes the living conditions of those elderlies and the communities' attention on them, which reveal the following problems. Firstly, most of the empty nest elderlies live on their pensions, and they enjoy a comparatively better life than those supported by their children. Besides, since most of the elderlies are unfamiliar with community support, they consider family support as their first choice; and for those who rely on community support the service they choose is mainly daycare. Furthermore, among informal support, spouses and children are still the main supporters for empty nest elderlies. The support from relatives and friends is mostly spiritual comfort while that from neighbors is chiefly instrumental help. On the other hand, lack of policy and fund is the main problem in formal supporting system.Due to the results of the research, the thesis presents the following suggestions for the improvement of the living conditions of the elderly. First, the government should play the leading role and improve the community supporting system through policy making and investment increasing. Secondly, the importance of the community should be emphasized and publicized so that empty nest elderlies would know more about community support. Also, to better help the elderlies, the community should be able to provide professional services with the assistance of some non-governmental organizations. Thirdly, in order to overcome the psychological problems caused by living alone, the empty nesters themselves should adjust their values, giving more attention to community support and perfecting their self-supporting system by cultivating more hobbies. Finally, a complete sustainable community supporting system should be built based on both formal and informal support.