A Study on the mode of home-based care for the rural areas in Guanzhong, Shaanxi, China

Abstract

At the beginning of the 21st century, China has entered an aging age, and the growth rate of the elderly has become one of the fastest in the world. In fact, the number of elderly people in rural China is higher than that of urban elderly. As the area of cultivated land in rural areas decreases year by year, the rural labour force shifts to cities. Most of the rural areas in China show the status of "hollow villages" with only the elderly. Influenced by the traditional Chinese Confucianism, home-based care is the most accepted way for elderly in rural China. The rural residence is dominated by traditional dwellings and newly built dwellings. Such dwellings cannot meet the living needs of modern elderly people, and have produced different of old-age care problems in rural areas. The traditional courtyard residence form is still widely used in rural Shaanxi. Taking Shaanxi rural villages as an example, this paper summarizes and analyses the architectural characteristics, space, mode and modern living conditions of traditional dwellings and new dwellings in Shaanxi, and proposes the rural home care mode and living unit in Guanzhong, in order to relieve rural social problems brought by "empty nesters" and laid the foundation for the issue of rural pensions.