Leisure and Rural Elders: China’s Leisure Education Programmes Under the Rural Revitalization Strategy

Abstract

The World Leisure Organisation’s Charter for Leisure outlines the right to adequate time for rest and for the pursuit of leisure activity. The right to leisure time and to participate in the cultural life of the community are significant for the wellbeing of a person. Leisure time refers to the remaining disposable time after completing various social responsibilities such as labour and professional activities, mainly used for entertainment, rest, and to meet spiritual and cultural needs. For older adults, mastering their leisure time is an important component of their lifestyle. However, the current situation is that doing household chores and helping the next generation take care of their children occupy a large part of their leisure time. Older adults’ decline in leisure activity participation is related to occurrence of diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease. Therefore, with the acceleration of the aging population in the world, monitoring the participation level of older adults in leisure activities and timely intervention has become an urgent task. China has an aging population, with the rural elderly population growing faster than the urban one. Data from the seventh national census in 2021 show that the proportion of people aged 60 and 65 and above in rural areas has reached 23.81 percent and 17.72 percent respectively, which are 7.99 and 6.61 percentage higher than the corresponding figure in urban areas. With the migration of young people to urban areas, rural older adults are left alone causing serious social concerns. Through the Healthy China initiative, many proactive policy initiatives are formulated for the older adults. Initiation of policies to improve the mental and physical well-being of older adults especially in the rural areas show the significance China attaches to solve the challenges faced by rural elders. Since leisure directly determines the happiness of the people, the Chinese government is increasingly attaching importance to leisure education for the people, and paying attention to adult leisure education in rural areas has become an important part of the rural revitalization strategy. Promoting rural adults’ leisure is significant for creating an environment for them to live happily in their later years. This complements the rural revitalization strategy to construct a beautiful countryside. In this backdrop, this paper discusses the various aspects of aging and leisure of rural elders and how it is integrated into the rural revitalization strategy of China. Even though China has rightly identified the problem of rural elder adults’ need for leisure activities, the paper argues that integrating rural elderly leisure with rural revitalization strategy has opened a new path of development for rural China.