Study On The Welfare Requirements And Satisfaction Extent Of The Rural Elderly In Shandong Province

As an agriculture country, the importance of Sannong (issues of agriculture, farmer andrural area) can not be emphasized more in China. And among these three factors, farmer is acore part. Our country is building a new socialist countryside as well as a harmonious society,in this backdrop, welfare requirements and satisfaction extent of the elderly in rural areas isbecoming a focus of all sectors of the society. Should this matter be poorly dealt with, thesocial stability of rural areas and the construction of new socialist countryside andharmonious society will certainly be affected. Therefore，it is of great significance to study thewelfare requirements and satisfaction extent of the elderly in rural areas in light of the socialstate of aging of population in our country. Paying attention to the welfare condition of theelderly in rural areas and meeting their needs of different levels are conducive to themaintenance of social stability of rural areas, promotion of the construction of new socialistcountryside and acceleration of the building of harmonious society.This paper makes researches on the welfare requirements and satisfaction extent of the oldin countryside of S county in Shandong province. Using method of quantitative study andgiving priority to questionnaire survey, I discuss the welfare operation of the elderly in ruralareas from the following four aspects based on Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory,namely physiological and safe needs, love and esteem needs, economic support state andself-actualization need. I conducted questionnaire surveys on the welfare requirements andsatisfaction extent of150rural elders and then analyzed these statistics by employingSPSS18.0. Along with the surveys, I used observation and interview as supplementary waysin order to listen to their voice and know their demands. Thinking from their point of view, Iobtained substantial materials and discovered tangible problems at the same time. Finally, Imade a conclusion according to the materials and statistics, based on the relevant concept andmethod of social work，and then managed to put forward pertinent measures aimed at theseproblems.Problems found in the survey are as follows. First, with increasing age, physiological state and self-care ability of the very old people are in declining, which makes the welfarecondition of this group of old people worrisome. Second, a large number of young people inthe countryside go out as migrant workers, leaving the old back home occupied with farmingwork and housework, thus making the burden of the old too heavy. Third, the spiritual life andcultural life of the rural elderly are relatively monotonous.Aiming at these problems, I came up with some measures and suggestions which go likethis: accelerating the development of social work in rural areas, introducing professionalmethods of social work, using the methods of cases, groups and social works to meet thewelfare demands of the rural elderly so as to mitigate their burden of life and further enrichingtheir life spiritually and culturally. Meanwhile, primary-level organizations like villagecommittee should play an active role in improving laws and social security measures relatedto the rural elderly.