关键词: 农村丧偶独居老人, 抗逆力, 儒家文化, 情感社会学, 社会支持

Abstract: In the context of China’s ongoing urbanization and demographic aging, rural elderly individuals living alone following spousal bereavement have emerged as a particularly vulnerable group. They face intersecting emotional, social, and cultural pressures, making their resilience a matter of urgent scholarly and practical concern. Adopting an affective sociology perspective, this study employs semi-structured interviews and participant observation with seven widowed and solitary elderly individuals in Village X, Shandong Province, to investigate the structural challenges and endogenous coping strategies of this group within the Confucian cultural context. Findings reveal that within the rural social order shaped by Confucian tenets such as “raising children for old age” and “filial piety ethics,” emotional expression among widowed, solitary elders is often suppressed. Their social roles become marginalized, and formal support resources prove difficult to access effectively, thereby contributing to generally attenuated resilience. Nonetheless, these individuals draw upon accumulated caregiving experience, preserved traditional skills, and informal neighborhood mutual aid networks to facilitate emotional adaptation and endogenous resilience. Based on these findings, this study proposes a localized intervention framework across four dimensions (cultural, emotional, social, and economic), which includes recommendations to leverage mutual aid resources rooted in Confucian ethics; establish culturally responsive mechanisms for emotional expression; and integrate community support networks.

Key words: rural widowed seniors living alone, resilience, Confucian culture, emotional sociology, social support