Exploring the perception, acceptance and expectation of Malaysian gen X towards family-friendly senior living community / Norhidayah Mohd Yusoff

Asia's population is ageing rapidly due to the increase of life expectancy and decline of fertility. The number of older people is forecasted to quadruple from 533 million in 2015 to more than 2.45 billion in 2050 worldwide. This scenario presents a challenge to the younger generation in taking care of the elderly and at the same time juggling with their career as well as immediate family. The practice of sending aged or older persons to the Senior Living Community is still a stigma in Eastern cultures, particularly for Malaysians. This due to some issues that are often associated with senior living community in Malaysia such as lack of pricavy, isolation and abandonment. Thus, this study was carried out to profile the perception, acceptance and expectation of the Malaysian Gen X towards a more family friendly senior living community concept. In-depth interviews with fifteen respondents with an equal representation of the three main races in Malaysia were conducted. The respondents were recruited using purposive sampling with certain sampling criterias. They must be Malaysian working individuals who aged 40 and above that possess Employee Provident Fund (EPF) or pension scheme. Another recruitment criteria is the respondents ought to reside in Selangor state which is projected to have the highest older population in Malaysia by 2020. The interviews were transcribed verbatim, manually coded and analyzed for themes. Through the thematic analysis, it indicated that Malaysians certainly need a family-friendly senior living community concept as to avoid isolation and abandonment of older persons. Most of them have negative perceptions towards the existing elderly care in Malaysia by describing such centres as a pitiful and unpleasant place for the older persons. The results found that most Malaysian Gen X are able to accept the proposed family-friendly senior living community concept with the main reason not to burden their children. Several different expectations on facilities, services and activities were anticipated by the Malaysian Gen X towards a family-friendly senior living community. Ultimately, this study is important as it could improve older persons' quality of life as the realization of the senior living community may help to reduce the worries of the younger generation towards the welfare and care for their parents or older family members.