Cross-strait Comparison of the Relationship Between Leisure Lifestyle and Well-being of Elderly in Urban Parks

[[abstract]]Ageing of population has been a common phenomenon around the world. The understanding on how to make the elderly getting old successfully becomes an issue people have to face with in a prosperity society. Related researches have demonstrated the effects of leisure participation on health improvement. Furthermore, leisure opportunity could be constrained according to different life style and resources available. Hence, the purpose of the study is to analyze the extent and relationship between leisure life style and well-beings of the elderly, as well as to compare Taiwan with China which are now facing with population ageing problems. The elderly of the urban park users in Taichung city, Taiwan, and Fuchou city, Fujian Province, China, was selected as target for empirical analysis. 564 valid samples (279 of Taiwan, 285 of Fujian) were obtained by convenience sampling with structured questionnaire. The data was analyzed by SPSS with descriptive statistics, Chi-square analysis, factor analysis, cluster analysis, and one-way ANOVA analysis. The results are as follows: 1.For Taiwan, three clusters were obtained and named as “spirit-oriented leisure life style”, “revealed leisure life style”, and “serious leisure life style”. As to China, there are also three clusters found, which were named as “low involvement leisure life style”, “social network leisure life style”, and “serious leisure life style”. There are the elderly of “serious leisure style” both in Taiwan and China; 2. The perceptions of well-beings of the cross-straight elderly are also different. For Taiwan, the well-beings of the elderly consists two dimensions as “happiness of life” and “understanding of life”. As to China, the well-beings also consists two dimensions: “universality of well-beings” and “experiencing life”. 3. The Taiwanese elderly of “serious leisure style” perceived higher level of “happiness of life” and “understanding of life”, and “spirit-oriented leisure life style” is the least. The Chinese elderly of “social network leisure life style” perceived the highest level of “universality of well-beings” and “experiencing life”, and “low involvement leisure life style” is the least. The study finally provides some suggestions regarding leisure participation and enhance well-being for the elderly