Keywords

1 Introduction

With the deepening of population aging, the increase of population mobility, the number of empty nest family and even the elderly living along is increasing. The number of empty nest families in China increased by about 13.3% and 4.79% in 2010, respectively, compared with 1990 and 2000 [1]. As of 2014, the empty nests in our country have already accounted for half of the total number of elderly people [2]. China’s report on the development of the aging industry (2014) shows that the proportion of the future empty nest elderly population is expected to break through 70% [3]. The changes in the population structure influenced by the one child policy have led to the challenge of the traditional family pension model. With the increase of empty nest families, family-care becomes more and more difficult. People begin to seek and accept social support methods such as community endowment, institution-care, and so on. Community home care shows a strong comprehensive advantage [4]. So it is important to study on the current situation of urban empty nest elderly of the community home care, to understand the needs of the empty nest elderly, the supply of the aged service and the use of the supply service. This will be useful for improving the quality of life of the empty nest elderly and solving the worries of young people.

The theoretical basis of the empty nest family is the “family life cycle”, the empty nest period is a stage of the family life cycle. Glick [5], the American social demographer, first proposed a relatively complete family life cycle theory in 1947. He divided the family life cycle into 6 stages: generation, development, stability, contraction, empty nest and disintegration, and thought that families had different contents and tasks in different life cycles. With the development of society, the order of traditional family events has changed (such as cohabitation before marriage, the increase of divorce rate, etc.). On the basis of this, American family sociologist Duvall [6] further divides the family life cycle into 8 stages. The theory of empty nest family based on “family life cycle” points out that the elderly in empty nest families should experience not only the transformation of life cycle from middle age to old age, but also the transformation of family cycle from core or main family to empty nest family. In the process of transformation. If the elderly do not adapt well, it is extremely easy to cause a variety of physical and mental problems, not only affects the quality of life of the elderly, but also bring influence to the family, which caused a series of social problems, such as empty nest elderly lack of living care, lack of medical care, lack of material security, lack of spiritual comfort, and so on.

The emergence of empty nest family is the result of external objective factors and individual choice and other factors, and the type of empty nest elderly is pluralistic. It has been found that there are significant differences in the urban and rural, age and the way of living for the different types of empty nest elderly. Costa [7] pointed out that urban empty nest elderly have more economic independence than rural empty nest elderly and less demand for their children’s economic support. Sun [8] pointed out that the economic condition and daily life self-care ability of couples in empty nest families are better than those of other types of empty nest elderly. The living conditions of the elderly living alone are worrying, and their children’s economic support and care support are more needed.

2 The Current Situation of Urban Empty Nest Elderly

2.1 Research Data Sources

The survey was conducted in Gulou District of Nanjing City, Jiangsu Province, China. The respondents were elderly people over 60 years old who lived alone or lived with their spouse. The sample selection was conducted by multistage random sampling, and the empty nest families were surveyed by household interview. A total of 160 samples were selected and 153 were successfully interviewed. Only one elderly person was selected in each family. Among the elderly people visited, 71 were males, 46.4%, and 82 were females, accounting for 53.6%. The content of the study includes information about the marital status, working conditions and number of children of the elderly people, and the investigation and analysis of the demand, supply and utilization of the service for the elderly. The following Table 1 gives the basic situation of the subjects.

Table 1. Basic situation of urban empty nest elderly (N = 153)
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2.2 The Reason of Empty Nest and Pension Mode Select

There are more than one reason for the empty nest of the elderly, and the empty nest family is the result of a variety of reasons, such as the individual, the family and the society. The results of the survey show that the different reasons for the empty nest are as follows. Personal reasons: ① The elderly want to live independently, and hope that later years have more freedom and autonomy, accounting for 22.2%. Most of them are younger elderly who are economic independence, rich in mental life and in good physical condition. ② 13.7% of the elderly chose to take the active empty nest because they do not want to leave the long - living environment. Family reasons: ① 32.7% of the elderly want to live together with their children, but because they are different from their children in life habits and values, they choose to live independently to avoid conflicts. ② 24.2% of the elderly who do not want to increase their children’s burden and choose to live independently. ③ There are 5.9% of the elderly people who are unable to live with their children because of their children’s material conditions. ④ In addition, 2 empty nest elderly have to be live alone because they are abandoned by their children, although their children have good material conditions. Social reasons: ① Due to the improvement of economic and housing conditions, many children are separated from the elderly after marriage, and this kind of empty nest family accounts for 61.4%. ② 38.3% of the empty nest families are caused by their children studying, working and living in a different place.

The results of the survey on the residence will of urban empty nest elderly is shown in Table 2. 74.5% of the elderly think that “Not living with children but in the same city” is their preferred way of living. The other 14.5% of the elderly think that living together with their children is a better way. It is shown that, the elderly people’s attitude to empty nests is obviously not as reject as a dozen years ago. Even many elderly choose to be active nest in order to live an independent life. This change shows that the old-age mode in China is developing from the traditional family pension to the social endowment.

Table 2. The residence will of urban empty nest elderly (N = 153)
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2.3 The Demand, Supply and Utilization of the Service for the Elderly

General research holds the statement that “Empty nest elderly, as a relatively vulnerable group in the social population, are mainly characterized by economic fragility, physiological fragility and psychological fragility”. But the survey results show that most of the urban empty nest elderly are economically independent and have some economic foundation, which is also one of the factors that they can live separately from their children. In addition, the results of the survey of empty nest elderly by ADL scale show that, most empty nest elderly can take care of themselves, but at the same time there are still some problems in their lives, such as cleaning, going to hospital and so on.

Alderfer [9] integrated Maslow’s five levels of demand into three needs and became ERG theory, which he thought people have three core needs: existence, relatedness, growth. This study is combined with the ERG theory to investigate the situation of 20 old-age service projects in urban empty nest elderly. Table 3 is a part of the survey data.

Table 3. The service status (part) for the urban nest elderly (N = 153) (%)
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At present, the empty nest elderly has the highest demand for meals, up to 54.9%. Followed by the needs of doing housework, 43.1%. And there’s a lot more than 20% of the empty nest elderly people’s needs for Relatedness and Growth. Service supply refers to the situation of service supply for the elderly. The supply rate of most services is more than 20% except the rate of Accompanied for the medical is 16.3% and 12.4% of the Agency agent. Comparison of service demand and service supply shows that the supply of Help with personal hygiene and Accompany chat is greater than the demand, but the supply of Food service and Doing housework is lower than the demand. In reality, though there are many services that are larger than demand, there are still large gaps between supply and demand due to the uneven distribution of pension services resources. Service utilization refers to the use of the service provided by the elderly at least once. The gap between service supply and utilization reflects the widespread problem of services excess in the present community home care service.

The survey results show that the current community home care service mode is obviously insufficient for the empty nest elderly to meet the needs of elderly services, and the utilization rate of empty nest elderly is low. This is because the community home care service focused more on the provision of “service for the aged”, the government also pay more attention on the service resources and the supply capacity when carrying out the service process. Empty nest family will be one of the main forms for the elderly in the future. The care resources of the empty nest family are different from other elderly people, so when we supply services, we need not only to consider the service resources and the supply capacity, but also to consider the demand difference caused by the characteristics of the empty nest elderly.

3 Intelligent Pension for Urban Empty Nest Elderly

3.1 Starting Point and Principle

From the analysis of the previous article, we found that the supply and demand of the elderly service is not matched at present. Therefore, on the basis of meeting the needs of the elderly through integrating the existing pension service resources, we can form complementary advantages among different pension services. So as to achieve the goal of lower cost, more efficient, faster, higher quality, higher satisfaction and higher value increment of pension services. In order to ensure the rationality of the intelligent pension service system, we must follow the following five basic principles: The systematic principle, The right principle, The fairness principle, The selectivity principle and The gradualness principle.

The Systematic Principle.

The intelligent pension system is part of the whole elderly service system. The effectiveness of its functions depends on the coordination of the other components in the entire elderly service system. Only by ensuring the integrity and hierarchy of all the elements in the intelligent pension service system, and with the coordinated development of other components of the system, can we achieve the goal of health care for the elderly.

The Right Principle.

The right to existence is a basic human right, and the basic conditions needed to maintain a citizen’s normal life should not be affected by the increase of age and the decline of physical function. The elderly should not be regarded just as a disadvantaged group or service passive recipients, but they should be regarded as participants and beneficiaries of social development. We should design the elderly service system and ensure the accessibility of the service on the basis of the interests of the elderly.

The Fairness Principle.

From the perspective of rights, every elderly should have equal pension services, but this does not mean that every elderly enjoys the same elderly services. We should follow the principle of relative fairness when constructing intelligent elderly service system, so that different categories of elderly can adopt their own pension service mode and avoid egalitarianism.

The Selectivity Principle.

The selection body and beneficiaries of the intelligent pension system are all elderly people. And are influenced by many factors such as physical condition, living condition, family caregivers, economic status and education level, there are obvious differences in the choice of elderly people. On the basis of respecting the choice of the elderly, it is necessary to provide a multilevel and diversified service mode and content.

The Gradualness Principle.

From the continuity of the model operation, we should not only ensure that the elderly can enjoy the economic and social development results, but also do not exceed the economic and social capacity of our country. For the elderly, sustainability also means the expansion of the service content to reduce the discomfort caused by changing the place of residence.

3.2 Supply and Demand Matching

The intelligent pension system breaks through the traditional elderly service mode with the concept of the core of the endowment resources, but the core of the service and service process. The focus of attention has been changed from “providing for the aged” to “service demand satisfaction”, which needs to meet the needs of the elderly. Complex service needs determine the provision of services for aged should including life services, medical services, agency services, professional services (finance, law, etc.) and so on. In reality, elderly people may need a single service or a combination of services. At the same time, different services will also have different providers. This makes a higher requirement for the matching of demand and supply.

As shown in Fig. 1. The interaction between the elements of the intelligent pension system is nonlinear. Each service subject integrates places, pension facilities, information, knowledge and other resources into a service capability with a certain function and value, providing services in the form of different service subjects. In the service process, service positioning and matching are carried out according to the needs of the elderly, and service is invoked to meet the requirements. In the intelligent pension system, the subjects of demand and supply may not be at both ends of the value chain, but on the notes of the value network. A subject may have dual roles of demand and supply at the same time. For example, healthy elderly with service demand can also become a provider of pension services. The matching between demand and supply of elderly services is completed by a service mediator, which may be an entity, such as information platform, community pension service center, etc., or a functional node of each subject. The basic logic of the intelligent pension system is the service supply based on the needs of the elderly and the service ability matching.

Fig. 1.
figure 1

The matching framework of supply and demand for the elderly service.

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3.3 Innovation Strategy of Intelligent Pension System

The characteristics of the intelligent pension system require that its innovation strategy should cover the whole process of demand side, supply side and demand supply matching in the whole time and space dimensions. This requires innovation strategies, including not only the content and form innovation of facilities, products and services, but also the process innovation, management innovation and business mode innovation of services. This paper puts forward the innovation and optimization framework of the intelligent pension system (see Fig. 2).

Fig. 2.
figure 2

Innovation strategy framework of intelligent pension system.

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The basic logic of the whole framework is the matching of demand supply and the two path cycle. The matching of demand supply is corresponding to demand side innovation, supply side innovation and supply and demand matching innovation. The two path is the driving innovation of “demand - supply” and the promotion of “supply - demand”, and the two paths circulate through the three parts.

Driving innovation path is an innovation mechanism from the demand side to the supply side. The service is driven by the requirements. The service is driven by the requirements. The characteristics of the service for elderly determine that this is an interactive process, and the people who need the service are also involved in the service process. Therefore, definite and express service demand more efficiently and accurately is a basic part of the demand side innovation. At the same time, the strategy such as booking services, special services, such as the peak equilibrium help transfer the pension needs, and contribute to the prediction and scheduling of the supply side. When service providers are assigned to service tasks, services are provided by integrating resources.

Promoting innovation path is an innovative mechanism from the supply side to the service side. Service providers expand their service abilities by expanding service resources, improving their quality of service. Through the strategy of service push, service marketing and so on, the service provider can excavate and create new needs for the elderly, then realize the innovation of the intelligent pension system.

3.4 The Mode of Intelligent Pension System

The service demand of the elderly has a variety of characteristics, and it often needs a number of service chains to co-ordinate the completion of the service for the elderly. The synergy between multiple service chains has become the Intelligent pension system. Each service chain represents the service chain that meets the different needs of the elderly, such as the catering service chain, the medical service chain, and so on. Figure 3 is the model of Intelligent pension system.

Fig. 3.
figure 3

The model of intelligent pension system.

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Different service chains are classified according to ERG theory, and provide different services for the elderly through collaboration or independent action. The community pension service center is the core of the Intelligent pension system, and the different community pension service centers carry out the allocation of the service for the elderly according to their own circumstances. Information interaction between different service providers on information platform. In addition, government agencies are embedded in the whole service system, playing the role of policy guidance and supervision. Different service providers need a clear position of responsibility in the Intelligent pension system.

3.5 Orientation and Suggestion of Different Service Providers

In the Intelligent pension system, the function of the government is to provide a good policy and institutional environment for the formation and development of the whole system, and act as a referee to ensure the healthy development of the pension service market. ① Policy formulation. The government needs to strengthen the formulation and implementation of relevant policies. ② Perfect the law, such as the long-term care insurance law, the practice law of the nursing staff, etc.

In the system, the community pension service center should not only play the role of the main service provider, but also improve its platform role. ① Integration of resources. Integrate the existing public service resources, such as education, culture, sports and other service facilities for the use of the elderly. Integrate all kinds of social service resources, including business organizations and non-profit organizations providing services for the elderly together. ② Supervision. While strengthening the supervision and management of its own elderly service facilities, it is necessary to strengthen the supervision of third party service providers in order to safeguard the rights of the elderly. ③ Information interaction. Through the establishment of the information base of the elderly, including the old people’s family, health, demand and other information, to achieve the efficient supply of services.

The third party service providers including business organizations and non-profit organizations. They raise the quality of life for the elderly by providing all kinds of support to the community pension service center and the elderly. ① Rich service content. Improve the content and professionalism of the service, and providing pertinent and rich service for the aged based on the individual differences of the elderly. ② Improve service quality. Ensure the level and quality of service by training the skills of the service staff, and setting strict standards for the service process. ③ Innovate service model. For example, through the integration of social, community, and institutional pension resources to make the pension institutions adapt to the community. This model is especially suitable for urban empty nest elderly, fully satisfied with their needs for professional pension services without leaving home.

4 Conclusion

With the deepening of population aging, the advancement of urbanization and the implementation of the one-child policy, the number of empty nest families will increase day by day, and will become one of the main housebound forms for the elderly in China. The family pension in the community is an important model to solve the problem of the elderly in the empty nest. Based on the survey of the current situation of the empty nest elderly in Gulou District of Nanjing. It is found that there is a contradiction between the lack of demand for the elderly and the coexistence of service. Through the analysis and research of the survey data, this paper puts forward the construction of the model of intelligent service system for the urban empty nest family. This is to help solve the problem of the elderly in the empty nest and improve their quality of life.