Contested Sociocultural Spaces of Aging in Rural China: From Older Adults’ Lived Experiences

Co-sponsored with the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies

Rural China has recently witnessed a disproportionate increase in its aging population. This is particularly concerning given that older adults in rural China already face greater socioeconomic disadvantages and much more limited access to social support, such as welfare benefits and health care, than their urban counterparts. China’s one-child policy and urbanization have further exacerbated caregiving shortfalls for this group as their children move to urban areas to seek better livelihoods. This intersection of sociocultural transformation and population aging in rural China calls for exploring how rural China as a dynamic context creates, constructs, and contests older adults’ aging experiences.

This presentation harnesses a critical and contextually sensitive perspective to explore how China’s rural context shapes and is shaped by rural older adults’ aging process. Drawing on a phenomenological approach, two studies took place in rural Shandong and Zhejiang Provinces. Rural older adults exercised their autonomy and agency to decide where and how they wanted to age. We further identified multidimensional, contextualized interplays among older adults’ autonomy, filial piety, and emerging social support, suggesting that older adults actively interacted with their rural context to co-construct rural aging in China. The findings illuminate the critical notions of meanings of rural aging in today’s China.