The social community activities and intergenerational exchanges between youths and elders in China

Findings in investigation at Shijiazhuang City

Abstract

The rate of aging in China is changing rapidly. The number of older citizens of over 65 years old in 2012 was 127,140,000 people according to the investigation of National Bureau of Statistics of China (except for Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan). This number reaches 9.4% in total. It took nearly one hundred years in developed countries, but it took only 20 years for China to change from an adult type society to an aging type society. In this research, the older citizens’ local community activities in Shijiazhuang City in China were examined aiming at getting suggestion to aging society in China. We focused on intergenerational exchanges and explored particularly the social activities by this investigation. When the results were probed by 􀈮2 examination, the significant differences were obtained in a part of volunteer activities and social actions. We could conclude the conclusion that in the case of older citizens who living together with their grandchildren, the more years they live with them, the more positive attitudes for intergenerational exchanges with the young.