Policy and Practice
From Design Strategy to Real-world Social Networks: Value of Systematic Community Engagement in Planning for Aging in Place
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session David Morris, Junjie Huang
Ageing populations, socio-demographic changes, and economic challenges are key factors in driving the need for an evidence-based approach to future ageing-in-place policy and practice. ODESSA, a three-year, collaborative study involving the universities of Central Lancashire, Sheffield, Tsinghua, (Beijing), and Dauphine (Paris) contributes to this evidence base through its study, concluding in 2018, to produce an ageing-in-place framework, capable of guiding development and practice across the three participating countries. ODESSA has been explicitly concerned to integrate deliberative community engagement and a participative research approach into the study process, from elements concerned with strategic development, design, and age-specific technologies to those considering the value of individual social and community networks as sources of support, citizen participation, and sustainability. The paper will focus on findings from the study’s work on social and community networks, describing the process through which community members became researchers of their own localities, setting this in a contextual description of connected communities, an earlier five year Big Lottery funded programme which explored the key themes and dimensions of community capital through local, social, and community network analysis.
The Transition of Elderly Housing in Japan and Sweden
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Hiroko Mizumura
As Japan and Sweden had experienced rapid economical growth after World WarⅡ between 1950 and 1980, both societies have faced problems of urbanization of population and housing supply in that time. Japan and Sweden have also started addressing an aging society in 1980. In the 1990s the Swedish social welfare system had strongly influenced the arrangement of aged people’s welfare system in Japan, guided by some key politicians and researchers. Japanese had introduced not only a service system, but also a planning theory for nursing homes and group homes from Sweden. In those days, both countries launched provision of extra-care housing in the context of consideration of quality of life for the elderly and social cost for institutional care. There are some similar trends of provision of elderly housing in Japan and Sweden even though the economic regime of those societies has been drastically different. In this paper, I will make a comparative analysis of how those societies provide elderly housing considering each social context.
From Public to Pluralistic Provision of Institutional Eldercare: A Study of National Policy Development in China
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Xi Liu
To cope with population ageing and unsustainable family eldercare, China has pursued the route of “socialisation of social welfare” to encourage non-state provision of institutional eldercare services. The paper aims to understand the development from public to pluralistic provision of institutional eldercare, by conducting a thematic and conceptual analysis of official policy documents generated by the central government from 1949 to 2017. Three stages of policy development could be identified according to ideational factors and policy scopes. (1) During the 1950s and the 1970s, institutional eldercare was largely part of a social assistance programme rather than a policy area in its own right. The destitute, regardless of their ages, could live either in state welfare institutions at the full expense of the government or at their own home with cash benefits. (2) The 1980s and the 1990s witnessed increasing academic and policy discussions about “socialisation of social welfare”, i.e. pluralistic provision of social welfare including institutional eldercare. However, concrete policies that helped to translate the idea of socialisation into practice remained scarce. (3) In late 1999, China National Working Commission on Ageing was established as a new advisory coordinating organization under the State Council. The move marked an official recognition of the new social risk of ageing in China, embarking on extensive policy issuance— including tax reduction, lower utility charges, government subsidies based on facility construction and operation, etc.— to create favourable policy environment for further social innovation of non-state actors.
