2018-0881 IJOI http://www.ijoi-online.org/ UNDERSTANDING ATTITUDES TOWARDS MUSIC LEISURE ACTIVITY AND THE CONSTRAINTS FACED BY THE ELDERLY Huey-Ling Liao Dept. Food & Beverage Management, Lee-Ming Institute of Technology Hung-Yi Tsai* Dept. Tourism & Leisure Management, Lee-Ming Institute of Technology *Corresponding Author - [email protected] Abstract An aging society is rapidly attracting people’s attention to geriatric assessment. Due to steady source of income from pension and/or annuity, elderly adults in Taiwan are more willing to allocate their expenditure on leisure. Nonetheless, the impact of traditional Confucian philosophy represents a barrier deterring the senior population from participa- tion of leisure activities. Given that, anecdote evidence often suggests many benefits of music on people of advanced age, the study explores the attitudes of the senior citizens in New Taipei City toward participation of music leisure activity, as well as constraints faced by the elderly. Social interest, intrinsic interest, and escape from boredom were identified as the main attributes of music leisure activity while family constraint and cost constraint were identified as barriers of participation. It was revealed that the sample’s gender, education level, income level, and residence showed demographic significance towards the identified attributes. Age group and marital status played no statistical sig- nificance towards the identified attributes. Keywords: music leisure, social interest, intrinsic interest, constraint, boredom escape Introduction War II; they worked during Asia’s golden era of economic expansion; and they typi- Due to declining birth rates and in- cally received sufficient amount of pension creased average life expectancy from accumulated from years of hard work, hence medical advances, an aging society is allowing them the affordability for leisure prevalent in many Asia-Pacific regions, expenditure. However, another similar de- which is the case in Taiwan, Korea, and nominator they share may be barriers to Japan (Kim et al., 1996). The seniors in their leisure activity, namely the influence of these regions have similar denominators in Confucianism. The culture, lifestyles, and that they were baby boomers post World family relationships in Taiwan, Korea, and 160 The International Journal of Organizational innovation Volume 11 Number 2 October 2018 2018-0881 IJOI http://www.ijoi-online.org/ Japan (also many other Asian countries) extend previous efforts and understand atti- are similar which follow the values and tudes towards participation of music leisure norms of Confucian philosophy in that activities and constraints faced by the eld- Confucianism emphasizes hard work and erly population in Taiwan. The study also study, with an orientation toward lifetime aims to segment seniors’ demographic pro- achievement which does not leave much file on identified attributes of music leisure time for leisure. Although many of today’s activity and their barriers of participation. younger generation places a greater em- phasis on self-fulfillment and pleasure, the Literature Review majority of today’s elderly generation still hold Confucian value that hard work is Studies have repeatedly shown older in- still more important than any other activity dividuals to have higher life satisfaction (Kamo & Zhou, 1994). As a result, the when they have more participation of leisure elder population in Taiwan, Korea, and activities (Ragheb & Griffith, 1982; Cuenca- Japanese is less likely to take part in lei- Amigo, 2017). In addition, Lennartsson and sure activities than their Western counter- Silverstein (2001) found socially-integrated parts (European and North American). leisure activities significantly reduced risk of mortality among elderly people in Swe- While there have been plenty of stud- den. A group of medical researchers also ies toward senior travel, studies pertaining identified leisure activities such as reading, to music leisure by the elderly population playing board games, playing musical in- has been scarce. Medical evidence has struments, and dancing have a profound frequently suggested that musical partici- effect of reducing the risk of Alzheimer’s pation may preserve cognitive functioning disease and vascular dementia on adults in advanced age (Hanna-Pladdy & Mac- older than 75 years of age (Verghese et al., Kay, 2011). Magee and Bowen (2008) 2003). even offered the creative use of music for people with complex physical and sensory Shifting attention to a non-medical needs which prevent active participation standpoint, Guinn (1980) investigated lei- in previous leisure pursuits. Sarkamo and sure motivations of rest and relation, asso- Tervaniemi (2015) showed cognitive, ciation with friends/family, physical exer- emotional, and neural benefits of musical cise, learning experience, and self- leisure activities in rehabilitation of age- fulfillment associated with elderly recrea- ing-related neurological illnesses, such as tional vehicle tourists’ demographic profile. stroke and Alzheimer’s disease. Undoubt- McGuire (1984) identified five constraints edly, musical participation by an elderly of leisure activity in a person’s later years: adult can not only bring positive effects to time, approval, ability/social, external re- the individual himself or herself, the re- source, and physical well-being. Losier et al. sidual positive effect may expand to the (1993) proposed a motivational model of senior’s extended family. A group of leisure participation among people of age. medical researchers had studied attitudes McCormick & McGuire (1996) examined toward benefits and barriers of leisure- leisure as a context for interaction within the time physical activity by the elders in social structure of older residents embedded community-dwelling settings (Dergance et in the community. In the study of Dergance al., 2003). The goal of this research is to et al. (2003), community-dwelling elders 161 The International Journal of Organizational innovation Volume 11 Number 2 October 2018 2018-0881 IJOI http://www.ijoi-online.org/ held beliefs about benefits gained from (2006) examined the types of leisure activity exercise include: mood, shape, health, and correlating to perceived physical and mental improved self-esteem. In the same study, health of older adults. A Malaysian study predominant barriers to leisure-time identified elderly people’s constraints of physical activity include: interest, enjoy- leisure activity are mostly due to deteriora- ment, company, knowledge, self- tion of physical health and absence of family consciousness, and lack of self-discipline member or friends to perform the activity (Dergance et al., 2003). together, as well as education level (Minhat et al., 2012). Lee and Tideswell (2005) suggested that senior Koreans when considering Methodology travel appeared to be restrained by a cul- turally ingrained belief (i.e. Confucianism Due to high cost of living in Taipei City, which emphasizes work and study while many nonworking retirees choose to live out refraining from time for leisure) that the their remaining years in the less expensive decision making should be a joint family adjacent New Taipei City, as shown in Fig- process and they would feel some form of ure 1 where New Taipei City surrounds guilt taking leisure activities. Payne et al. Taipei City. Figure 1. Districts of New Taipei City surrounding Taipei City, Taiwan The most populated districts of New Sanchong District, the Zhonghe District, and Taipei City are the Banqiao District, the the Xinzhuang District. These four Districts 162 The International Journal of Organizational innovation Volume 11 Number 2 October 2018 2018-0881 IJOI http://www.ijoi-online.org/ are situated to the southwest of Taipei City spondent had post graduate education ( n = where convenience is aided by the MRT 0.5%). By monthly income, 47.67% ( n = 92) (Mass Rapid Transit) connecting commut- of the senior population received pen- ers to Taipei City. Hence, sample was ran- sion/annuity at “less than NT$20,000”, domly chosen across the elder population 32.12% ( n = 62) of the respondents received in Banqiao, Sanchong, Zhonghe, and “NT$20,001 – NT$30,000”, 12.95% ( n = 25) Xinzhuang.From the literature review, the of the respondents received “NT$30,001 – study developed a 20-item scale to measure NT$40,000”, 4.15% ( n = 8) of the respon- seniors’ attitudes toward music leisure ac- dents received “NT$40,001 – NT$50,000”. tivity and the constraints faced by the eld- Finally, 6 respondents (3.11%) received erly respondents. Questionnaires were dis- “over NT$50,000” monthly. By residence, 48 tributed evenly across the four most popu- respondents (24.87%) live in the Banqiao lated districts in New Taipei City, Banqiao, District, 50 respondents (25.91%) live in the Sanchong, Zhonghe, and Xinz-huang. Sanchong District, 49 respondents (25.39%) Samples were taken during weekends be- live in the Zhonghe District, and 46 respon- tween March and October of 2017 in public dents (23.83%) live in the Xinzhuang District. parks and community centers. The re- sponded questionnaires were rated by a The collected data ( n = 193) were sta- five-point Likert scale (1 = strongly dis- tistically analyzed using SPSS 20 for Win- agree, 2 = tend to disagree, 3 = neutral, 4 = dows. The 20-item scale received a Cron- tend to agree, and 5 = strongly agree). bach’s alpha score of 0.700, which indicates acceptable reliability. Among the 20 ques- From 200 samples, the demographic tions,