澳門安老政策的嬗變——去家庭化的視角

The relationship between government and family is an important perspective of social welfare policy research. The difference in the size and scope of the role the government plays in replacing or supplementing family functions is manifested in different degrees of de-familisation. This study focuses on the welfare policies for the elderly in Macao over the past two decades, especially defamilisation on the economic and social dimension. The coverage and wage replacement rate of cash benefits for the elderly and the coverage of social care services are used to measure the degree of defamilisation of the elderly’s economic security and personal care. Based on the statistics data in Macao, it is found that the de-familisation in the elderly’s economic security has been greatly improvedand increases their economic independence, but its level in elderly care is relatively limited, and the fundamental role of family care still is emphasized during the past 20 years. Macao’s elderly care policy has moved towards a mixed model which combines moderate degree of defamilisation in income maintenance and active family ties in elderly care, which reflects the balanced responsibilities and complementary advantages between the family and the government.