Eldercare Issues in China and India

"By bringing together Chinese and Indian views of eldercare under five key themes—filial piety, family care, institutionalized care, issues of care for the marginalized elderly, and eldercare research issues—this book allows readers to gain a deeper understanding of the challenges that increasing population, aging, shifting cultural norms, and relatively limited public resources in both China and India have posed for the eldercare systems in these countries. This book builds up a strong body of interdisciplinary analyses of important issues under each of these themes and concludes with an illuminating synthesis of what has been presented. There are hardly any books available in the field of social gerontology with a focus on India and China. This book raises important issues about the status of eldercare in China and India and provides a meaningful starting point for further investigations. I think not only Chinese and Indian scholars, but also many international scholars would be interested in reading this book."---Fang Zhao (赵芳), Professor, School of Social Development and Social Policy, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

"This book tries to capture the current scenario of eldercare in both countries by taking both positive and negative aspects into account. For example, it highlights the negative societal perception of older people, especially in China, despite it being known for glorifying virtues of filial piety. The book also emphasises that the elderly population is not a homogeneous category. For the experiences of marginalized elderly (single elderly in India and the elderly in China who have lost their only child) may not be the experiences of all elderly." --- Shivangi Patel, PhD candidate, Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Delhi

"All in all, the book presents us with some extremely critical questions on eldercare in India and China, keeping in mind the contemporary changes experienced by both the countries.To a great extent the book offers a strong example of comparative analysis and meaningful contributions by scholars from diverse disciplines such as health sociology, anthropology, social work, and social gerontology" --- Ashwin Tripathi, PhD candidate, Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, India

"The strengths of the book are the rich insights it gives into the moral concerns of researchers in China and India, concerns which in turn shape and are shaped by debates in both societies. Chapters 2 and 6 provide novel assessments of the respective roles of social engineering and town planning in responses to population ageing in China. There are timely calls in Chapter 8 for greater societal recognition of self-care in later life, and in Chapter 10, for better data on older people in India." --- Lucy Smout Szablewska, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK