Living Smart

IV PUBLIC POLICY & SOCIAL SCIENCE 132 133 Sense of community central elderly focus Dr. MIAO Jia Research Assistant Professor, Division of Social Science B y 2064, Hong Kong’ s number of elderly (aged 65 and older) will reach 2.58 million, accounting for 36 percent of the population.Today this percentage stands at 16, with one third of the elderly living in poverty. These staggering figures pose severe challenges to our society, thus studying the well-being of Hong Kong’ s elderly is vital to developing the right solutions. Since 2010, our Center for Applied Social and Economic Research team at HKUST has been conducting surveys of 3,200 families, 7,200 adults and 950 children every two years (The Hong Kong Panel Study of Social Dynamics), looking into how our society is transformed over time and how various government and social policies are influencing families. Our research has found that most elderly and their children would like to live independently from each other, but constrained by Hong Kong’ s astronomical housing prices, they are forced to be cramped together. Despite the undesirable living circumstances, there are ways to ensure the elderly enjoy good quality living conditions while housed with other family members. Maintaining and improving the physical and mental health of the elderly can be enhanced by participation in communal activities or engaging in hobbies, and they could enjoy higher social cohesion. Social cohesion is the willingness of a community to help one another survive and prosper. In other words, in areas with high social cohesion, people tend to look after their neighbors’ well-being better. We are pleased to see over the last eight years, social participation rate among the elderly has actually improved, from 11 to 20 percent. This is roughly on par with the figures in the mainland and Taiwan, yet we still lag behind Europe. Consequently, what can our government and NGOs do to further enhance this? Constructing more neighborhood elderly centers has proven instrumental in maintaining and improving the overall well- being of our senior residents. In areas with more of these centers, the rate of depression among the elderly population is much lower. I am pleased to see the government released a list of 55 elderly activity centers last week as part of the HK$20 billion funding plan to buy properties for welfare facilities. The next question will be how it can make sure every district’ s need for such centers can be equally met. In fact, many problems confronting our old people have arisen from a lack of income that restricts the poor from receiving the necessary health care.Therefore, the administration should take radical and immediate actions to address the