The Research On Social Support Of The Living-alone Elderly In Urban

With the social economic development, the acceleration of the population aging process and the shrinking of family structure, the living-alone elderly has been rising fast in number and proportion, on the pension mode the elderly who live alone don’t rely on the traditional family endowment like other old people, they are facing series of problems in solitary life, such as the limited source of income, the lack of necessary social care in daily life, the singleness and close of social life, and the short of emotional and spiritual comfort, etc. Though the country has begun to formulate relevant policies systematically to response to the problems which old people are faced with, because of the late start relatively and the low institutionalized level, together with no considering the particularity of the living-alone elderly, their many social support needs has not been met. The research on social support of the living-alone elderly is of great significance to ensure the quality of their later life and build the harmonious and stable aging society.The article adopts qualitative research method, taking Jinan S community as an example, through investigating social support system of the urban old people who live alone, from three aspects (economic support, life care support, emotional and spiritual support) two dimensions (formal and informal support) analyzes social support condition of S community and summarizes the problems in the existing social support of urban old people who live alone:pension and medical insurance system are not sound; economic supporters of the urban old people who live alone lack social support; the government regulations and policies for the living-alone are not perfect, community endowment is weak, life caregivers of old people who live alone are short of support; old age discrimination is serious,; the modern communication tools cause more aloneness.On this basis, this article puts forward the corresponding proposals: perfecting old-age insurance system; expanding the support in medical insurance; strengthening the support in caregivers of the living-alone elderly; increasing the support in community care; strengthening the support of life care of the caregivers of the living-alone elderly; advocating for old people who live alone into the family and society. On the one hand, it helps to not only enrich the understanding of social support of old people who live alone, but also provide a little reference for social support applied in other aspects research; on the other hand it enriches the theory of social support in the local application in China, and provider some beneficial enlightenment for the services of the local old people who live alone.