Comprehensive Research for the Sustainability Elderly People's Lifestyle

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We get the following conclusions on the patterns of the life style of aged people through a questionnaire and an interview in Fukuyama, one of the typical local industrialized cities in Japan. Comparing with those patterns, we also discuss the life style of aged people in Nanjing, China, and Levittown, PA. USA.The points are the following :1 There are three key words to analyze the life style of aged people : ‘health', ‘work', and ‘communication'.2 ‘Work' and ‘Communication' are the fundamental factors for sustaining healthy life of aged people.3 There are three life styles of aged people in Fukuyama depending on their habitat patterns : the rural pattern, the inner city pattern and the suburban new town pattern.4 The aged people of the rural pattern used to have the most healthful life style, for working in their fields and having good communications between their neighborhood. On the contrary, the people who live in the suburban new town used to feel to be indisposed in everyday life … More . And the inner city pattern is mostly healthful, because they can easily contact with their friends and have good shopping for their necessaries of life by good public access.5 The aged people in the suburban new town, especially the aged women, are mostly unhappy and desolate by lack of their access to downtown or other community except ‘my car' and only 20% or less of those women have driver's license.6 In Nanjing, China, urban family life style is getting increase to privatize house works, just like Japanese ‘my home' style in the 1970s' go-go age, and they have experienced the same problems as Japanese people at that period. On the contrary, aged people in US want to do some kind of works, such as part-time work or volunteer activities, for their productive aging.7 We consider that it depends on the ‘work' and ‘communication' of aged people whether they can enjoy a healthy and human life. That is a reason why we shift the paradigm from ‘successful aging' to ‘productive aging'.8 We confirm that ‘the productive aging' and ‘the socialization of living' (including easy access to the necessaries of life) are key stones and the concept of ‘the community business' would be very useful to realize their self sustained life. Less