Dissertation Research: The Impact of China's Economic Reforms on the Rural Elderly

本研究项目旨在研究农村中国的老龄化问题。研究人员将重点研究中国的新经济体制对两个村庄老年人及其家人生活的影响，这两个村庄在现代化计划下提出了不同的建议。这个项目提供了一个难得的机会，通过在大规模经济现代化计划的第一阶段研究非西方社会的老龄化来检验当前的老年学理论。它将为亚洲未来的研究提供基线数据，并提供有关农村老年人的信息，这些老年人在学术研究中经常被忽视。亚洲的人口压力是一个世界性的问题。亚洲将成为世界上下一个拥有大量老年人口的地区。中国限制家庭规模的政治补救措施将产生意想不到的深远副作用。这项研究将通过帮助我们衡量是否正在创造一个新的贫困老年人下层阶级来调查这样的影响。这项研究将提供必要的信息，以确定中国是否成功地满足了中国迅速增长的老年人口的需求。

This research project is designed to study aging in rural China. The researcher will focus on the impact of China's new economic system on the lives of the elderly and their families in two villages which have proposered differently under modernization programs. This project offers a rare opportunity to test current gerontological theories by examining aging in a non.Western society in the first phase of a massive program of economic modernization. It will provide base line data for future studies in Asia and information on the rural elderly who are often overlooked in scholarly studies. Population pressures in Asia are a world.wide concern. Asia will be the next area of the world to have large populations of elderly. China's political remedies of limiting family size will have unexpected and far.reaching side effects. This research will investigate one such effect by helping us gage whether a new underclass of impoverished elderly is being created. This research will provide information necessary to determing China's success in addressing the needs of its rapidly expanding elderly population.