Research on the Organizational Foundations of the Countryside-based Community's Mutual-aid Elderly Care

Based on the Senior Dining Program cases, this paper explores the characteristics and dilemmas of the externally driven countryside-based community's mutual-aid elderly care, the organizational mechanisms of the internally driven elderly care, as well as the two sets of dialectical relationships involved in developing them at a low cost. It has found out that the government-led care system reveals high risk of involution of resource input because of its pursuit for management standardization, while the role of grass-root organizations contributes very little in the market-oriented elderly care system. Comparatively, the elderly care initiated by endogenous self-organization functions well. On the one hand, the mobilization of rural social resources greatly reduces the costs. On the other hand, the inner-trust and public scrutiny contribute to the risk control. Meanwhile, the left-behind villagers are better organized in the care program development.