The Current Situation and Demand Drivers of Rural Home Elderly Care Services in the Context of Rural Revitalisation --- Taking Chengdu City as an Example

Abstract

Based on a sample of 487 rural elderly people from five counties (cities and districts) in Chengdu City, this paper investigates the main demand drivers affecting rural home-based elderly care service consumption willingness based on structural equation modelling. The results of the study show that (1) the overall satisfaction level of the demand for rural home-based elderly care services in Chengdu is 40%, with insufficient service relevance and low cost-effectiveness; at the same time, the service functions of the basic facilities for the elderly are not sufficiently fulfilled, and the resources are not effectively utilised. (2) The willingness to participate in home care services in rural Chengdu is mainly driven by spiritual and cultural, medical and health care and other demand factors. (3) Life care has a positive effect on rural elderly's participation in home care to a certain extent, but it is not significant. Safety and security indirectly affect rural elderly's willingness to age in place by influencing medical and health care. Therefore, the government, enterprises, communities, and families should work together in an orderly and coordinated manner to form a family-centred, community-based, and professional service-dependent socialised service for the rural elderly living at home, with the main content of solving daily life difficulties, and supplemented by spiritual and cultural services, in order to guard the rural elderly in their later years of happiness.