Evaluation Research on the rural model of Active Ageing.

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Aged society is a society in which the elderly have a strengthened sense of existence, and will not be formed without the social inclusion of the elderly by structurally providing them with a variety of social roles. It also aims to maintain their social roles through participation in various social activities including jobs. The purpose of this research is to investigate the actual conditions of social activities of the elderly in a depopulated rural area of western Japan, and to clarify the prerequisites for a rural model of Active Ageing.We did social surveys on the social activities of the rural elderly : interviews of individuals and organizations and questionnaire surveys of 609 persons above 20 years old chosen at random (methodological sampling) conducted by mail (response rate : 67.3%) in 2007 in Nakatsue-mura, Hita City, Oita Prefecture. This survey revealed that the rural elderly receive social support from children living apart from them, participate in sustainable activities such as agriculture, and show the particular characteristic that they are participating in activities to maintain the community by household units.Thus, the social roles of rural elderly are maintained through activities based on life structure such as farmwork, which is more advantageous than the urban elderly. However, it was revealed that the situation does not allow much room for optimism. Though the rural elderly are somehow sustaining barely keeping their lives at present, the situation is anticipated to become more severe in the future.