A Narrative Study of Community Care in Old Neighbourhoods of Beijing and Taipei
Date Issued
2016
Date
2016
Author(s)
Xu, Wen-Wen
Abstract
With the accelerating pace of global aging and strong family ties in the traditional Oriental Culture, both China and Taiwan are facing unprecedented challenges. Particularly, a number of old communities burdened with serious aging problems, poor infrastructures, high dependency ratio and complicated social network during urban renewal in Beijing and Taipei. Quite a few studies were based on the structure of population, the changing of values on elderly care and the development of social work; however, personalized studies on this topic were rare. Qualitative research methods were used in this study. First of all, self-narrative is such an effective and prime approach to sort out the life courses about three generations of caring in Hutong Quadrangle community of Beijing and some practical experience as a social work intern in a community organization of Taipei. Then, semi-structured interviews with key persons from two communities above were done to collect their opinions on the current policy and practice of old community care there objectively. The study has three main findings: First, there are obvious generation differences among the whole story, but the restrictions of Hutong Quadrangle community have always influenced the choices on elderly care. Second, community workstations in Beijing employed professional social workers, which aimed to participate in community services, but the lack of freedom and creation significantly affected the quality of services. Third, the community caring sites were operated by Community Development Associations for years in Taipei, but the relationship with borough chief is inflexible which may cause uncertainty in the future progress. Above all, the study recommends the ideas of urban old community care across the Taiwan Strait in three aspects: First, to protect the original style of old communities within the overall city planning there, then improve the policy of elderly care and community care. Second, civil organizations should be more independent, the responsibility of caring service should be more clearly differentiated among different parts in communities, the cooperation with professional social workers and volunteers should be more active, and then discover greater potentialities there. Third, to facilitate better communication between Beijing and Taipei on topic of urban old community care.
Subjects
old community
community care
narrative study
cross-strait study
Type
thesis
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