{"title":"It was all planned … now what? Claiming agency in later life in reforming China.","authors":"Jiayin Liang, Baozhen Luo","doi":"10.1017/S0144686X16000830","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This study explores the social construction of agency and wellbeing among 20 Chinese urban retirees aged between 50 and 82 years old (averaging 67), with a special focus on the impact of earlier life experiences in shaping later-life pathways. Today's retirees in urban China have experienced the communist collectivist ideology during the Mao era as well as the changes to everyday life brought about by the economic transformation from centrally planned socialism to a market-orientated economy. Thereby, life in retirement for Chinese elders becomes more than just an issue of dealing with increases in discretionary time after exit from full-time work, but also one of making sense of their earlier life experiences in the midst of dramatic social changes. A grounded theory approach with semi-structured, in-depth, face-to-face interviews was used for data collection and analysis. Three interrelated themes emerged: (a) reminiscence as a mechanism of meaning-making, (b) discovery and exercise of agency in later life in contrast to a rigidly structured earlier life, and (c) varying pathways to constructing the life-stage of retirement. The findings have refuted gerontological literature and public discourse that often portray Chinese elders as passive care recipients or helpless dependants. Further, the present study has practical implications for developing policies, designing programmes and providing services to improve the quality of life for today's older Chinese people.</p>","PeriodicalId":51364,"journal":{"name":"Ageing & Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.3000,"publicationDate":"2017-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S0144686X16000830","citationCount":"5","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Ageing & Society","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0144686X16000830","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2016/8/12 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"GERONTOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 5
Abstract
This study explores the social construction of agency and wellbeing among 20 Chinese urban retirees aged between 50 and 82 years old (averaging 67), with a special focus on the impact of earlier life experiences in shaping later-life pathways. Today's retirees in urban China have experienced the communist collectivist ideology during the Mao era as well as the changes to everyday life brought about by the economic transformation from centrally planned socialism to a market-orientated economy. Thereby, life in retirement for Chinese elders becomes more than just an issue of dealing with increases in discretionary time after exit from full-time work, but also one of making sense of their earlier life experiences in the midst of dramatic social changes. A grounded theory approach with semi-structured, in-depth, face-to-face interviews was used for data collection and analysis. Three interrelated themes emerged: (a) reminiscence as a mechanism of meaning-making, (b) discovery and exercise of agency in later life in contrast to a rigidly structured earlier life, and (c) varying pathways to constructing the life-stage of retirement. The findings have refuted gerontological literature and public discourse that often portray Chinese elders as passive care recipients or helpless dependants. Further, the present study has practical implications for developing policies, designing programmes and providing services to improve the quality of life for today's older Chinese people.
期刊介绍:
Ageing & Society is an interdisciplinary and international journal devoted to the understanding of human ageing and the circumstances of older people in their social and cultural contexts. It draws contributions and has readers from many disciplines including gerontology, sociology, demography, psychology, economics, medicine, social policy and the humanities. Ageing & Society promotes high-quality original research which is relevant to an international audience to encourage the exchange of ideas across the broad audience of multidisciplinary academics and practitioners working in the field of ageing.