{"title":"Elder Civic Engagement and Rural Community Development","authors":"Randy Stoecker, Benny Witkovsky","doi":"10.1007/s12126-022-09488-4","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Rural areas are becoming more and more concerned about their aging population and perceived loss of youth. Analysts see the older members of communities as a burden, and focus their development strategies on attracting and retaining the young. In doing so, they may be missing the value that elders’ civic engagement can provide to rural community development. This qualitative study, based on interviews with 40 elders in mostly rural areas of Wisconsin, in the United States, shows the benefits that their civic engagement brings to rural areas. They have biographical availability, political and economic freedom, and life-long experience to offer. They do face some challenges, including occasional health issues, lack of technological agility, and change-resistant peers. The paper concludes by considering how communities can better access and honour elder civic engagement, including understanding elders’ motivations and skills for civic engagement.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":51665,"journal":{"name":"Ageing International","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0000,"publicationDate":"2022-03-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s12126-022-09488-4.pdf","citationCount":"2","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Ageing International","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12126-022-09488-4","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"GERONTOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 2
Abstract
Rural areas are becoming more and more concerned about their aging population and perceived loss of youth. Analysts see the older members of communities as a burden, and focus their development strategies on attracting and retaining the young. In doing so, they may be missing the value that elders’ civic engagement can provide to rural community development. This qualitative study, based on interviews with 40 elders in mostly rural areas of Wisconsin, in the United States, shows the benefits that their civic engagement brings to rural areas. They have biographical availability, political and economic freedom, and life-long experience to offer. They do face some challenges, including occasional health issues, lack of technological agility, and change-resistant peers. The paper concludes by considering how communities can better access and honour elder civic engagement, including understanding elders’ motivations and skills for civic engagement.
期刊介绍：
As a quarterly peer-reviewed journal that has existed for over three decades, Ageing International serves all professionals who deal with complex ageing issues. The journal is dedicated to improving the life of ageing populations worldwide through providing an intellectual forum for communicating common concerns, exchanging analyses and discoveries in scientific research, crystallizing significant issues, and offering recommendations in ageing-related service delivery and policy making. Besides encouraging the submission of high-quality research and review papers, Ageing International seeks to bring together researchers, policy analysts, and service program administrators who are committed to reducing the ''implementation gap'' between good science and effective service, between evidence-based protocol and culturally suitable programs, and between unique innovative solutions and generalizable policies. For significant issues that are common across countries, Ageing International will organize special forums for scholars and investigators from different disciplines to present their regional perspectives as well as to provide more comprehensive analysis. The editors strongly believe that such discourse has the potential to foster a wide range of coordinated efforts that will lead to improvements in the quality of life of older persons worldwide. Abstracted and Indexed in:
ABI/INFORM, Academic OneFile, Academic Search, CSA/Proquest, Current Abstracts, EBSCO, Ergonomics Abstracts, Expanded Academic, Gale, Google Scholar, Health Reference Center Academic, OCLC, PsychINFO, PsyARTICLES, SCOPUS, Social Science Abstracts, and Summon by Serial Solutions.
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