Institutionalisation Embedded in the Community: Path Construction of Ageing in Place in Rural China

Abstract: Enhancing the quality and level of elderly care services in rural areas is one of the core challenges facing China in coping with population ageing. The lack of certainty, standardisation and sustainability in community- and home-based eldercare services has created tensions between “ageing in place” and “being stuck in place”, underlining the need for systematic research and practical responses. This study conceptualises modern rural communities as “hybrid organisations” at the meso level and interprets rural elderly care practices as institutionalised behaviours integrating emotional labour and the pursuit of “internal goods” at the micro level. It constructs an ideal path for rural ageing in place centred around “institutionalisation embedded in the community”. Based on field studies in a typical village from east China, this study also presents the practical manifestations, operational characteristics and logic of this ideal path. Community institutionalisation based on institutional support and community construction rooted in emotional support have transformed the rural community into a “bounded nursing home with no walls”, which is an effective practice for rural China to address the challenges of ageing.