A Resort or A Remote Village? - Using Jobs-To-Be-Done Theory to Understand Elderly’s Thinking Toward Senior Residences in Taiwan

Abstract

Contrary to westerners’ recognition towards senior residences, Asians have a deep-rooted concept of “Bring up children for the purpose of being looked after in old age”. In Asian society, it is considered a blessing for elderly to live with their family among many generations. Thus, living in a senior residence is considered an indignity, in which the elderly are perceived to have been abandoned by their children. Society in Taiwan does not have a positive attitude toward senior residences. In fact, an effective health and wellness organization that senior residences can provide will help improve the “twilight years” of the elderly, and at the same time, reduce the proportion of the “disability population” of the entire society.

This research uses the Progress Making Forces Diagram in Jobs-to-be-Done theory to understand the attitudes of residents in a seniors health and care village and the attitudes of “hesitants” (i.e., those who have doubts about living in senior residences). This research adopts the research method of focus interviews in order to explore the residents’ ideas of the two forces of “push” of the situation and “magnetism” of the new solution as well as those of the hesitants regarding their “habit” of the present and “anxiety” of the new solution.

In our research, a total of six focus group interviews were conducted. Three groups of interviewees, which included 22 people in total, were already occupants of a senior home village. The other three groups of interviewees, which also included 22 people in total, focused on hesitants who were living at home with their families. Based on the analysis of grounded theory, we found that safety, health, and learning were most attractive for the residents, who viewed an seniors health and care village as “a free resort”. In contrast, the hesitants were satisfied with living their families and their living environment and did not want to be isolated in “a remote village”. These findings provide preliminary concepts for quasi-elderly on the attitudes of their peers with regard to senior residences. Furthermore, these findings also provide a reference for senior residences that will aid in marketing and promotion.