ABSTRACT
Many contemporary perspectives on aging have focused on the high degree of variability of social capital among older adults. This chapter first focuses on older adults in a Shanghai urban community, potentially limiting the generalizability of our results. Second, in the context of the enormous transformations occurring in contemporary Chinese society, a longitudinal study in the community would help to recognize and track changes in social capital across time. And third, considering the complicated nature of social capital, a triangulation approach with a mixture of surveys, longitudinal measures, in-depth interviews, and archival study would facilitate a more scientific understanding of the various factors that enhance as well as undermine social capital in urban communities. The properties of social capital among older adults, their perceived community social capital, the association between different forms of social capital and demographic variables, and their inter-relationships were investigated step by step.
