A Study On The Resilience Of Empty Nesters During The COVID-19 Containment Period

With the advancement of urbanization and the reduction of family size in China,the number of empty nesters has soared,and the ensuing problem of old-age security for the empty nesters has gradually been brought to the attention of all sectors of society.At the same time,the rapid outbreak of the epidemic in Shanghai in March2022 and the closure of many neighborhoods have brought multiple risks and tests to the empty nesters,who are originally physically and psychologically vulnerable.Faced with various challenges during the home closure period,some empty nesters had difficulty adapting and experienced difficulties in living and psychological helplessness,but many empty nesters were able to actively cope with various closure pressures and showed good adaptation.Why were these empty nesters able to adapt well during the epidemic closure and control period,and what factors contributed to their successful resistance? How did these factors play a role? These are the core questions to be answered in this paper.This paper uses ecosystem theory and Kumpfer’s environment-individual interaction model as the theoretical basis,and uses qualitative research methods to select 13 empty nesters and 5 community workers in community H who experienced the closure of the epidemic in Shanghai from March to June 2022 as interviewees,to comprehensively understand the multiple stresses faced by the empty nesters in this special context,to analyze the resilience of the empty nesters in the stressful situation,and to deeply explore the internal and external protective resources and mechanisms of the empty nesters from the micro,meso and macro levels.We analyzed the resilience of the empty nesters in the stressful situation,explored the internal and external protective resources of the empty nesters and their mechanisms from the micro,meso and macro levels,and proposed countermeasures to promote the resilience of the empty nesters from the perspective of social work.The conclusions of this paper are as follows: firstly,during the period of Shanghai’s new epidemic control,due to the change of living environment and the difficulty of timely satisfaction of personal needs,empty nesters have multiple stresses in life,mental and social aspects;secondly,under the stressful situation,empty nesters have different behavioral manifestations in cognitive adaptation,psychological adaptation and social function adaptation,which can be divided into two forms: positive and negative manifestations;thirdly,empty nesters have intrinsic physiological,psychological and social cognitive characteristics at the micro level,which determine the process and outcome of resilience as the core mechanism;the family support and peer support at the meso level play an important role as a buffering mechanism and interpersonal expansion in the process of resilience generation;while the macro-level community support and social culture serve as protection mechanisms to provide life security and positive psychological environment for the empty nesters.These three systems interact and intertwine with each other to form the resilience generation mechanism of the empty nesters during the epidemic closure and control period.Finally,the author proposes to promote the generation and development of resilience of the empty nesters by enhancing their personal characteristics and strengthening their external social support network,so as to improve their ability to cope with risk events and better cope with various difficulties and challenges in their future lives.