This research project is designed to study aging in rural China. The researcher will focus on the impact of China's new economic system on the lives of the elderly and their families in two villages which have proposered differently under modernization programs. This project offers a rare opportunity to test current gerontological theories by examining aging in a non.Western society in the first phase of a massive program of economic modernization. It will provide base line data for future studies in Asia and information on the rural elderly who are often overlooked in scholarly studies. Population pressures in Asia are a world.wide concern. Asia will be the next area of the world to have large populations of elderly. China's political remedies of limiting family size will have unexpected and far.reaching side effects. This research will investigate one such effect by helping us gage whether a new underclass of impoverished elderly is being created. This research will provide information necessary to determing China's success in addressing the needs of its rapidly expanding elderly population.
