Doctoral Dissertation Research: Institutionalized Eldercare in Contemporary China

耶鲁大学博士生Rose Keimig将在Marcia Inhorn博士的指导下，研究当代中国老年人、家庭和护理人员是如何协商新形式的制度化老年护理的。20世纪几十年的改革，尤其是20世纪70年代末的独生子女政策，导致了今天中国严重的人口失衡。在孝道规范和保健服务私有化的背景下，这些不平衡又刺激了对住宿护理设施需求的增加。该项目是第一个使用民族志研究方法来研究多元医疗体系、不断变化的道德世界、不断变化的人口结构和新的市场驱动的护理机会如何调节中国老年人机构化经历的项目之一。这项拟议中的研究将在中国西南部云南省的省会昆明进行。本研究结合了社会科学方法，包括参与观察和对工作人员、住院医生、机构老人和非机构老人家庭的访谈，旨在展示人们如何应对新形式的老年人护理的日常挑战。广泛的研究方法和信息源将提供一个丰富的账户，如何生物医学化，亲属关系和城市化的更广泛的主题映射到当代中国的老龄化经验。此外，通过超越现有的人口统计学和统计数据，本研究试图揭示，通过将老年亲属从私人住宅转移到机构，家庭如何促进新形式的机构护理的出现，以及在当代中国成为老年人，孝顺子女和照顾者的新方式。这项研究不仅在中国，而且在全球都具有广泛的社会意义。通过展示老龄化是如何经历的，护理决策是如何做出的，以及家庭责任是如何在机构环境中重新制定的，本项目将阐明政策干预的领域，这些领域将使中国、美国和世界各地未来的护理人员、老年人和家庭更容易实现人口转型。

Yale University doctoral student Rose Keimig, under the guidance of Dr. Marcia Inhorn, will investigate how elders, families, and caregivers are negotiating new forms of institutionalized eldercare in contemporary China. Decades of reforms during the twentieth century, and especially the one-child policy of the late 1970s, have given rise to stark demographic imbalances in China today. These imbalances have, in turn, stimulated an increase in demand for residential care facilities against a backdrop of filial piety norms and the privatization of health care services. The proposed project is one of the first to use ethnographic research methods to study how experiences with elderly institutionalization in China are mediated by pluralistic medical systems, changing moral worlds, shifting demographics, and new market-driven caregiving opportunities. The proposed research will be conducted in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province in southwestern China. Using a combination of social science methods, including participant observation and interviews with staff, residents, and families of institutionalized and non-institutionalized elders, this study aims to show how people are grappling with the everyday challenges of new forms of eldercare. The wide range of research methods and informants will provide a rich account of how the broader themes of biomedicalization, kinship, and urbanization map onto the aging experience in contemporary China. Furthermore, by going beyond the existing demographics and statistics, this research seeks to uncover how, by moving aging relatives out of private homes and into institutions, families are facilitating the emergence of new forms of institutional caregiving and new ways of being an elderly person, a filial child, and a caregiver in contemporary China.This research has broad social relevance, not just in China but across the globe. By showing how aging is experienced, how caregiving decisions are made, and how family responsibilities are reworked in institutional settings, this project will illuminate areas for policy interventions that will make demographic transitions easier for future caregivers, elders, and families in China, the U.S., and around the world.