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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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The discontents of reform
— boundary work and welfare stigma at mixed elder homes in China | | Author(s) | Haijing Dai |
| Journal title | Journal of Social Policy, vol 43, no 3, July 2014 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press, July 2014 |
| Pages | pp 497-515 |
| Source | journals.cambridge.org/JSP |
| Keywords | Institutional accommodation ; Care homes ; Finance [care] ; Attitude ; Social welfare ; China. |
| Annotation | During the 1990s welfare reforms in China, which highlighted budgetary cuts and decentralisation, local governments in Taizhou, Zhejiang Province, placed self-financing older people in public welfare homes or sent the "Three Nos" (no children, no income and no relatives) on public assistance to the emerging non-governmental elder institutions, so as to strategise their public spending. The author uses ethnographic data collected at the reformed mixed elder homes to examine how physical, social and cultural boundary work is constructed and maintained during the everyday interactions of those older people who pay and the public clients on welfare. The self-financing customers, through their efforts of distinction, stigmatise the "Three Nos" older people as incompetent, irresponsible and dependent individuals of low quality, and condemn their incompatibility with the regional market prosperity. Although marginalised within institutions, those on public welfare adopt the ideals of collectivity, equality and reciprocity under state socialism as their persistent yet weak resistance. Previous research has hailed the welfare reforms for introducing diverse funding mechanisms and innovative service models. This study of the antagonistic boundary work at mixed welfare institutions calls for an assessment of the class hierarchy and social inequality that have appeared in the post-reform era. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-151522223 A |
| Classmark | KV: KW: QC: DP: TY: 7DC |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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