Introduction Having a caring family is an important resource to any older person, not only does it provide a great source of care and support when they require others’ help and assistance in performing daily activities, it also serves to alleviate the burden of welfare system and balances health care expenditure. The traditional paradigm reinforced the idea that healthcare is and should be provided by doctors, nurses and health professionals within the healthcare settings (e.g. clinics and hospitals), although family members for centuries had provided care, support and assistance to each other in time of illness. The role of informal care provided by family members was often overlooked. Hong Kong, like many other advanced economies in the world, is facing this care challenge at all levels, including not limited to family, community and institutions as population ages rapidly. The proportion of the population aged 65 or older is estimated to reach a whopping 28% in 2034 from the current 13%, as a result of increased longevity, low fertility rate and the ageing of baby‐boomers. This extends the parent‐child relationship and thus would significantly prolong the extent of care to be provided by adult children. In addition, the majority of older persons in Hong Kong prefer to live and age at home than being institutionalized, implying that a large proportion of long‐term care burden of older persons, of which 74% of them live with multiple chronic diseases, would fall upon informal caregivers within family. Objectives This qualitative study was convened against this background and the purpose of this qualitative study was to develop a better understanding and more comprehensive description of the complicated, fluid, and multidimensional caregiving experience among Chinese caregiving adult children, especially daughters, who assume most responsibilities in caregiving tasks and work a greater number of hours in delivering care as compared to male caregivers by addressing the following three objectives: (1) Capturing more accurately the interaction among different factors that influence their caregiving identity, experiences and subsequent practices; (2) Highlighting the needs and gaps in support services that would allow caregivers to continue caring, working and managing other aspects of their lives; and (3) Adding to the range of perspective towards informal caregiving by conducting a case study of male caregivers. It was hoped that these efforts would enable us to understand the commonalities or essences of the subject matter being investigated and deeper insights could be developed to inform and orientate policies and services, and to make informal caregiving more gender equitable. Findings Nineteen women and two men were interviewed during the study. Their stories highlighted the diverse, wide‐ranging and dynamic nature of informal caregiving experiences. Regarding the study objectives, nine predominant themes were invoked from the participants’ narratives, including: (1) Self-identification with the identity of being an informal caregiver being gradually and socially constructed process through recognizing and acknowledging the roles constituting informal caregiving; (2) Positive and negative feelings occur simultaneously but positive ones are important motivator that keep informal caregivers in their role; (3) Support services remained largely unavailable and inaccessible to informal caregivers; (4) Team approach to caregiving as the flexible solution to family care; (5) Psychosocial support and taking occasional breaks from caregiving duties to get recharged; (6) Influences of family values, living arrangements, time resources, and social expectations towards informal care provided by adult family members; (7) Men focused more on tasks and facts instead of emotions; (8) Men are more assertive when expressing themselves to the care‐recipients and authority figures; and (9) Men were more reserved and less likely to open up and talk about feelings and emotions. Recommendations These themes reflected efforts for understanding informal caregiving in Hong Kong in terms of the forming of identity, the positive and negative experiences of being caregivers and the communication among different values in driving filial behavior among family members in Hong Kong. These had marked the beginning of the long journey to recognizing, supporting, and protecting these unsung heroes and heroines through policies and practices. Three potential directions for future development in regards to adult‐child‐parent caregiving were also discussed, which included: (1) framing informal caregiving as a public health issue; (2) understanding, promoting and celebrating male caregiving; and (3) stocktaking, need‐matching and review of support services. / published_or_final_version / Public Health / Master / Master of Public Health

published_or_final_version / Social Work / Master / Master of Social Sciences

published_or_final_version / Social Work / Master / Master of Social Work

published_or_final_version / Gerontology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

The ageing population is growing rapidly in Hong Kong. In addition, the distribution of the elderly concentrates to live in the old urban districts including Central and Western, Wan Chai, Eastern, Sham Shui Po, Kowloon City, Wong Tai Sin, Kwun Tong and Yau Tsim Mong. In order to provide care services for elderly people, the principle of “ageing of place” is adopted by the government aim to the elderly live in a familiar environment. In order to provide a suitable living environment for the elderly, the government has implemented a series of policies on housing, recreational facilities and social elderly services for the elderly who live in the old urban districts. In order to understand whether the elderly are satisfied with the services to be provided by the government, three districts including Central and Western district, Eastern district and Wan Chai district are picked up as target of study which are a high proportion of the elderly living in. Opinions are demanded from the elderly and the representatives of Owners’ Corporation who live in these districts in order to investigate the perception of existence living environment, the recognition of the financial incentive schemes, the most important facilities and elderly services for them in daily life, the satisfaction level of the recreational facilities and the social elderly centre and the importance of maintenance of relationship with neighbours in the old urban districts. The paper finally raised several recommendations for improvement of living environment and elderly services in the old urban districts. They are providing better facilities for the elderly, increasing amount of financial incentive providing more funding for the non-government organization, providing sufficient place for the social elderly centre, providing more recreational facilities and enhancing service delivery. With the better living environment and sufficient of elderly services, the elderly can maintain a healthy life in the old urban districts. / published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

Aging is a universal problem that has to be recognized and formally addressed. The investigating of innovative opportunities and ideas in the building of a community that could cater the needs of elderly community is in immediate need. Planning for the aged, not just quantitatively, but qualitatively, is therefore on the top of the political agenda. Hong Kong is facing challenges resulted from an aging demographic population structure. Rapid rate of aging of the population implies addressing retirement needs is going to be a big challenge for government to tackle. Government needs to prepare and plan to provide sufficient service for the growing elderly population. The assessment of the current policies is in need now in order to formulate a strategic and comprehensive plan to allow aging in place. Aging in place requires policies and programs provided on the ground of comprehensive understanding of the aging processes and contexts. While existing programs tends to focus on physical aspect, it is important to evaluate aging within the context of neighborhood as an important place of aging. To break through from the current planning framework to provide for the aged, there is a need to rethink the possibility of employing community planning framework to better engage different stakeholders through local planning initiatives. This study attempts at brainstorming and suggesting possibility in amending existing planning and policies to cater for the changing demography. The interest of the study is to explore the role of public life in facilitating healthy aging. In addition, evaluate the role of neighborhood as important physical and social places which contributes to well being of older people. / published_or_final_version / Urban Planning and Design / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

published_or_final_version / Social Work and Social Administration / Master / Master of Social Sciences

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Social Work and Social Administration / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Social Work and Social Administration / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Social Work / Master / Master of Social Work