Gerontology Commons^™

The Covid-19 Crisis And Intergenerational Relations : The Case Of Hong Kong Families With Older Parents Ageing In The Greater Bay Area In Mainland China, Bowen Zhou

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations (MPhil & PhD)

The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area has been developed by the Chinese central government since 2016. Driven by the development of the Greater Bay Area, the well-developed transportation has further provided chances for Hong Kong older people to reside in the mainland GBA cities. The relevant Hong Kong government departments have made a comparison showing that the number of Hong Kong older people (aged 65 and above) who are ageing in the Greater Bay Area of mainland China has increased to around 90,200 in 2019, a 33% increase from 2013. Given the most updated situation, these Hong Kong families with …

Beyond Economics And Politics : A Sociological Review Of Local Long-Term Care Service Provision In China, Zhen Tian

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations (MPhil & PhD)

The socio-demographic transition presents a significant challenge that impacts the renewal of welfare arrangements and the reallocation of welfare responsibilities across sectors. Long-term care (LTC) services have emerged as a widely accepted strategy to promote the active daily living and human dignity of senior citizens. This study aims to assess the effective policy strategies employed in various Chinese contexts to address significant LTC policy concerns and synthesise lessons that can guide future policy decisions. The study addresses three questions to explore local variations in China's LTC service provision: (1) What differences exist in the long-term care services provision? (2) How …

Comparison Of Ageing Policy Between Hong Kong And Singapore, Ka Wai Tam

SOC 605 Comparative Social Policy Research Project - Student Works

This research study aims to explore and compare the ageing policy between Hong Kong and Singapore. Population ageing itself is a dynamic process. The ageing of the population is caused by three reasons: the decline in the level of fertility, the decline in the death rate and the continuous extension of the average life expectancy of the population. It is an inevitable demographic phenomenon. However, under the globalization effect, although the world is getting more connected in the last few decades, all developed and developing countries are facing the same problem which is the ageing population. There are a lot …

A Study Of The Universities Of The Third Age In Hong Kong : An Evaluation Of Elder Academy Model For The Life Long Learning Of Older People, Ka Fai Wong

Theses & Dissertations

Education aims at the development of knowledge and skills for its own sake and pleasure. People aged over 65 years currently comprise 11% of the Hong Kong population. Such aging population in Hong Kong constitutes a challenge to our society. To be adaptive to changes in the environment, especially in aging, more emphasis is placed on “lifelong learning” than on “lifelong education” for self-fulfillment Active aging is evidently supported as a solution to the impact of aging population. Lifelong learning is an important strategy for enhancing active aging. The provision and process of lifelong learning for older people can take …

Materialism And Life Satisfaction Among Older People In Hong Kong : A Case Study And Comparison With Younger People, Yau Tsang Chan

Theses & Dissertations

The rapidly ageing global population reminds us to pay attention to the psychology of ageing. As research on materialism among older people is rare, this study aimed to explore the relationships between materialism and life satisfaction among older people in Hong Kong, a rapidly ageing Chinese society. It also suggested a novel concept – intergenerational material expectations (IME) – to understand older people’s material expectations regarding their children. The data were compared with a younger group to find out if age differences existed. The study was a survey design among two age groups: older people aged 65+ and younger people …

Exploring The Television Portrayal Of Older People In Hong Kong : A Study Of Two Public Affairs Documentary Series, Caillie Tam

Theses & Dissertations

Adopting the contextual social constructionist perspective on social problems, the present study investigates how older people are portrayed in two public affairs television documentaries in Hong Kong over a period of two decades. There were The Hong Kong Connection (produced by the public service broadcaster, Radio Television Hong Kong); and Chasing Current Affairs (produced by a commercial broadcaster, Asia Television Limited). A mixture of research designs was employed in the analysis, namely: (1) content analysis on the documentary episodes, (2) reviews of government documents and (3) in-depth interviews with social workers and the staff engaged in documentary episode productions. A …

Fear Of Crime Among Older Persons : An Exploratory Qualitative Study In Different Environments In Hong Kong, On Fung Chan

Theses & Dissertations

Fear of crime among various groups has long been studied in Western societies. Many studies have concluded that older persons tend to exhibit higher levels of fear of crime than other age groups even though they are generally at a lower risk of being victims of crime. However, there have been relatively few studies on fear of crime and associated reasons amongst older persons in Asian cities and Chinese societies. Moreover, most existing studies have generally utilized quantitative methods to examine the possibly causal relationships between fear of crime and its underlying factors, and subjective evaluations by older people themselves …

Information Technology Usage And Quality Of Life Among Older Persons : A Qualitative Study In Hong Kong, Wing Fung, Chad Chan

Theses & Dissertations

INTRODUCTION: In this high technology era, rapid developments in information technology (IT) have the potential to transform the lives of older persons. Ageing tends to be associated with reductions in health status and resources, which can be potentially affect the adoption of new technology. However, the role of IT is becoming ever more influential in our daily living though the digital services such as email, e-banking and e-shopping. Therefore, older persons inevitably come across various IT-related products, especially computers and the Internet, in their everyday lives. Moreover, the quality of life of older persons is important and has been identified …

Age Identity And Adjustment Patterns In Later Life : A Qualitative Study Of Retired Secondary School Teachers And Manual Workers In Hong Kong, Kit Ying, Connie Yong

Theses & Dissertations

With escalating heterogeneity of the older population due to extending healthy life expectancy, chronological age is decreasingly likely to be an appropriate discriminator of social groups among the diverse population. It may be more fruitful to understand how older people actually feel and live their lives than merely using chronological age as a categorizing variable. Therefore, the present research investigates individual age identity which may provide a more realistic indicator of ageing in the life course. It may also underpin many behavioral phenomena.

Age identity focuses on how an individual perceives himself or herself in terms of age. Previous studies …

Powerless Or Perilous? : Ageing Women As An Emerging Social Force In Hong Kong, Kit Ling Luk

Theses & Dissertations

Ageing women have so often been represented in government policy rhetoric, gerontology literatures and journalistic discourse as the genderless, powerless and passive objects of welfare and services;, by and large, as a social problem that needs to be monitored and managed. Taking a cultural research approach, this thesis explores ageing women’s actual practices in Hong Kong social movements and aims to rerepresent ageing women as active social agents capable of generating multiple “tactical identities” enabling them to participate in and interact with an environment that poses concrete challenges to their participation.

In filling the gap between research on social movements …

A Study Of Travel Behavior, Travel Preferences, And Subjective Well-Being Of Older Persons In Hong Kong, Ka Yan, Little Cheng

Theses & Dissertations

Demographic ageing of the population is now well established in Hong Kong and, as elsewhere, is raising increasing concerns about the basic needs and the well-being of older persons. Older individuals vary considerably and may try to enhance their well-being in different ways by a range of leisure activities. The gradually improving financial and physical status suggests travel as a potential leisure activity which might enhance individual well-being and quality of life of older persons.

Previous research about travel has mainly involved marketing and sociological perspectives. The market research to date for investigating customer values of tourism and typologies of …

The Role Of Volunteering In Successful Ageing : Impacts On Psychological Well-Being Of Older Persons, Sin Yui, Sharon Chan

Theses & Dissertations

The thesis looks at volunteering, an activity in which time is freely given as a gift to benefit other people, groups and society. Formal volunteering, as opposed to informal helping, entails stronger commitment via organisations that offer more or less organised assistance often on an individual basis. The thesis suggests that older retired persons provide an invaluable pool of formal voluntary workers amidst the growing need for social services and fewer resources for social welfare expenditure. This pool will grow even more in the future. Moreover, the research looks at the experiences of social engagement in older and associations between …

香港老年保障制度改革模式, Xuemei Wang

Theses & Dissertations

1971年，香港已經建立了綜合援助計劃，以幫助貧困長者，並在2000年12月開始執行強積金計劃。從目前的情況來看，香港已經建立多支柱的老年保障體系，SSA和CSSA為長者提供基本生活保障，MPF制度為正規部門的就業人員提供年金保障，ORSO制度為正規部門就業人員提供額外保險。但此體系還相當的不完善，並不能給長者提供足夠的、可承受和可持續的養老金。

因此，面對日益嚴重的人口老齡化和老年貧困問題，香港老年保障制度也面臨極大的資金壓力，並處於老年保障支出越來越多，老年貧困問題制度越來越嚴重的尷尬局面。本次研究針對這些突出問題，結合國際老年保障制度改革的經驗，並根據香港實際情況，提出適合香港本身的老年保障制度模式，即提高MPF繳費率，擴大繳費基數，改革個人賬戶積累發放辦法，並將SSA由全民平均津貼制改為收入調查津貼制。

本文運用世界銀行開發的PROST軟件，從精算的角度進行具體成本分析。通過對未來70年的成本預測，以及與現制度的成本比較，以判斷此改革模式是否具有長期財務可持續性和可行性。通過此次研究，希望能為香港的老年保障制度提供一個雙嬴的方案，既可提供長期的老年保障資金支持，又可促進經濟持續發展。

Older Mothers' Expectations Of Intergenerational Relationships : The Intergenerational Ambivalence Perspective, Sze Wing Yan

Theses & Dissertations

With the effects of social changes, family values have changed and tensions and contradictions are probably more likely to occur among family members. According to the intergenerational ambivalence perspective, intergenerational relationships are inherently structured so as to generate ambivalence. Ambivalence means the contradictions in the relationships between older parents and adult children that cannot be reconciled. Individuals are expected to use various strategies in their attempts to manage ambivalence at least temporarily.

Older women, who often have different life experiences than older men given the influence of traditional Chinese culture, are the focus of this research. The present study aims …

Lifelong Learning For Older Persons In Hong Kong, Sze Sze, Stephanie Hui

Theses & Dissertations

Lifelong learning (LL) has been widely regarded as one of the activities that can enhance well-being of the society and benefit older persons in terms of psychological, physical, mental, and cognitive well-being. In foreign countries like the Unites States of America, the United Kingdom, Finland, France, Australia, and also China, LL among older persons had been developed successfully. Hong Kong, in contrast, has no systematic planning for the development of LL even though the aged population is increasing rapidly. This research aims at constructing a LL model for older persons in Hong Kong. The theoretical framework of study focused on …

A Study Of Life Events And Psychological Well-Being Among Older Persons In Hong Kong : The Role Of Self-Esteem, Coping And Locus Of Control, Kwok Hung, Billy She

Theses & Dissertations

The present study investigates to what extent the life events, which includes self-perceived health, self-esteem, internal locus of control and coping effectiveness as indicators, could explain the occurrence of positive affect and depression amongst these elderly persons. The relationships between life events, self-esteem-level, internal locus of control, coping effectiveness, and psychological well-being among older persons (aged 60 or above) in Hong Kong are examined. Eight pilot study cases have been carried out in order to test for the validity of the research instrument. One hundred and three elderly respondents were successfully interviewed face-to-face from three main estates in Tseung Kwan …

Exploring The Changing Relationship Between Formal Carers, Informal Carers And Carees During The Elder-Care Process, Sing Nam Hung

Theses & Dissertations

There are increasing studies looking at effects of caregiving to the frail elderly in Hong Kong. However, many studies often focus only on a single dimension of caregiving in either informal or formal carers without the focus on the elderly that receiving cares. Few studies have viewed elder caregiving as an integrative and dynamic approach, with limited examination and exploration on the caring processes and interactions between the formal and informal carers and elderly carees, and the reasons for this pattern.

Thus a caregiving triad might be considered as consisting of the elderly caree, the formal and informal carer, and …

Images Of Older Persons In Hong Kong Popular Films, Nga Man Wong

Theses & Dissertations

Film watching is a popular leisure activity in modern society. Films, as a medium, provide powerful tools to deliver social messages and to create images of particular social groups. The cinematic images portrayed by films toward a particular social group may consequently shape our social perceptions and expectations of that social group. The ways that cinematic images portray older persons are, therefore, a potentially major source for detecting social values and views about them.

As some cinematic images tend to reflect social attitudes and behaviours, the present research aimed at investigating how popular films portray the images of older persons. …

Explaining Volunteering In Old Age : A Social Reinforcement Perspective, Tsz Wai Lau

Theses & Dissertations

Volunteering has been widely accepted as potentially a very good means to engage older persons and to maximize their contribution to society. There is a need to understand the entire process of volunteering, the reasons that motivate older persons to participate in volunteer services and activities and to appreciate why committed elderly volunteers continue to involve themselves in volunteering. The present study attempts to explore the possible motivational and sustainable aspects in the process of volunteering guided by a social reinforcement perspective. It further aims to propose an explanatory model for the initiation and sustainability of volunteering involving older persons …

The Concept Of Healthy Ageing In Hong Kong, Mei Lan, Mandy Chiu

Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to explore the concept of ‘Healthy Ageing’ in Hong Kong. The research attempts to explore the historical base from which ‘Healthy Ageing’ has been conceptualized in both Western and Chinese societies. This study also tries to provide an overview of literature that relevant to the ‘Healthy Ageing’ concept, and to provide an initial theoretical framework of ‘Healthy Ageing’ in a Hong Kong Chinese context.

This study mainly adopts a qualitative approach in exploring the meaning of the concept. Since that ‘Healthy Ageing’ is likely to be conceptualized from the concept of health and ageing, …

Impacts Of Residential Relocation On Stress, Coping And Quality Of Life Among Older Persons In Hong Kong, Siu Pan, Benny Chan

Theses & Dissertations

Residential relocation could potentially be injurious to older persons. Indeed, much of the research literature in Western societies points out that involuntary residential relocation may exert undesirable impacts on older persons’ lives. Those impacts could be even greater if the relocation was forced upon the individual one person. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to investigate the impacts of involuntary residential relocation on older persons’ quality of life, stress and coping in Hong Kong. From a review of the literature, it was hypothesized that there will be perceived stress during and after the process of residential relocation, and satisfaction …

An Exploratory Study Of Informal Support And Life Satisfaction Of Older Persons In Macau, Meng Soi, Florence Fong

Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of the research is to explore the forms of support provided by informal support networks of spouse, adult children, relatives, friends and neighbours for older persons in Macau. The research also attempts to identify the elements that contribute to life satisfaction among active older persons. As little research has been conducted in Macau, this study tries to introduce data and possible suggestions for initiatives in elderly policy in this area.

The thesis adopts mainly a qualitative approach in exploring the possible informal support elements that contribute to life satisfaction as perceived by active older persons. Sixty-five in depth …