Lin Chen
陈琳

Lin Chen is an Associate Professor in the Department of Social Work at Fudan University. Lin received her Ph.D. in Social Welfare from UCLA, M.Phil. from the University of Oxford, and bachelor from Fudan University. Lin’s research focuses on aging, long-term care, community gerontology, and social policy for older adults. Her work pays special attention to older adults’ lived experiences of aging and sociocultural influences on caregiving cultures in the Chinese context.

Lin’s monograph Evolving Eldercare in Contemporary China: Two Generations, One Decision was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2016. This book casts new light on how families confront various new challenges in supporting older parents in urban China and how successive generations reconcile conflicting values about caregiving responsibilities. Lin co-authored and published Community Eldercare Ecology in China and Higher Education and Career Prospects in China by Palgrave Macmillan in 2020. Despite the age differences targeted by these two books, Lin highlights the ever-evolving temporal aspects in community support for older adults and higher education for emerging adults in China.

Currently, Lin focuses on exploring the renewed meanings of aging in China and caregiving culture, in particular, the evolving norms and practices of filial piety that contemporary trends reflect. She is working on an ethnographic study that intends to have a critical inquiry on how rural China as a dynamic context creates, constructs, and contests older adults’ aging experiences. At the Harvard-Yenching Institute, she is also keen on advancing her pedagogical knowledge and skills to provide students with a holistic cultural lens to understand the dynamic interplay between aging and society.