A Study on Community Support Activities and Their Locations Considered by Older Retirees

AbstractThis study focuses on relationships between participation desire for community support activity, locations considered appropriate for activities, living situation and history of residence, and occupation through a survey of retired older people in Japan. Family and relatives living nearby strongly influence the preferred location for community support activities (CSA). Most older people believe public facilities should be used for CSA, but believe elementary schools are for children only. To ensure community use of elementary schools, it is important to promote their usefulness to older people who do not have a relationship with the school through their children or grandchildren.Keywords: CSAdesire for participationelementary school facilitiesolder retirees Notes1 A web-based survey system was used in this study. Through the representatives of the four organizations that agreed to participate in the survey, we distributed survey request forms to the members of the organizations, who then accessed the URL of the survey site and responded to the survey.2 An alumni organization of retirees of Daikin Industries, Ltd.3 Daiwa House Kansai Alumni Association. http://daiwa-ob.com(confirmed 17.4.24)4 Retirees’ Associations in 19 prefectures in total, Kanto, Tokai, and Kinki Chapters.5 Retirees’ association held in Nagaokakyo City, Kyoto Prefecture.6 Even when the number of CLs increased, most respondents remained biased toward one CL, and all the other CLs from which they derived were extremely small. Respondents included in the largest CL exhaustively selected many activities, and the lack of a clear selection trend was considered a characteristic of this CL.7 Although it is expected that the number of rented offices may be lower in suburban areas, it was determined that there would be no issue if there were no omissions in the facilities located in the area.8 The conversion of school facilities into community centers is mentioned by Ueno and Motono (Citation1997), and it is assumed that the situation will accelerate as residents voluntarily promote it. Under these circumstances, it is difficult to believe that the trend of utilizing elementary school facilities for community activities will progress. The purpose of this study was not to retrospectively determine the reasons for the current use of elementary school facilities but rather to determine the total willingness to use elementary school facilities for CSA, while also considering regional differences in the actual use of elementary school facilities.9 Public facilities, such as community centers, may have predetermined times and frequencies of use for certain rooms and locations, which may have influenced the results.10 Referring to the occupational classifications of the 2015 census and considering the characteristics of the companies surveyed (retiree associations and retiree coalitions of relatively large companies in the three metropolitan areas) the authors’ research group reconfigured the survey to allow for differences in the selection preferences for CSA. Ten corporate retirees were asked to confirm the validity of their choices prior to the survey; those occupations not included in any of the assigned categories were designated as “other.”Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research Grant Numbers JP26560020.