China is experiencing one of the world’s fastest aging processes, with rural areas aging more rapidly, profoundly, and under vulnerable conditions, making rural elderly care both critical and complex. Urbanization has intensified these challenges, as young people migrate to cities for work, leaving many elderly individuals living alone. Meanwhile, the development of elderly care institutions in rural areas is further constrained by limited economic resources and traditional cultural norms.
In response, mutual-aid elderly care models have emerged, including collective housing for seniors, community kitchens, and organized visits by local women or younger seniors to assist isolated elderly individuals. However, these models face sustainability challenges when financial support declines, resulting in a “decline dilemma.” Simultaneously, external resources—such as policies, projects, and organizational support—struggle to integrate effectively within villages, leading to a “suspension dilemma.” These dilemmas reflect the collective action challenges inherent in developing rural elderly care systems, rooted in the complex, nested institutional structures within villages.
This study delves into the “black box” of village-level collective decision-making using Ostrom’s Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework and the theory of multi-layered nested institutions, developing an Actor-Action Situation-Interaction Pattern framework. The village is conceptualized as a platform for multi-tiered elderly care, with clans, families, village committees, local organizations, and rural elites identified as key actors. These actors interact within both formal and informal governance structures, informal networks, based on kinship, geographical proximity, and shared events, intertwine with formal networks composed of village committees, resident groups, and households, forming the village’s nested governance system.
These actors and networks, in conjunction with external variables—such as endowments, economic conditions, and institutional frameworks—across different action scenarios, including external resource inflows, village-based endogenous care development, and mutual embedding of internal and external resources. These interactions shape the content and quality of elderly care services and influence the design of service models and the construction of service networks within China’s rural elderly care system.
