Developing a Subjective Socio-Demographic Resilience Scale: Bridging Resilience Theory and Demographic Governance

• In Event: Crossroads of Change: How Migration, Aging, and Fertility Reshape Nations

Abstract

Rapid population ageing and declining fertility are generating structural pressures on health, economic, and social systems worldwide. Yet most resilience frameworks remain oriented toward short-term, external shocks (Saja et al., 2019; Copeland et al., 2020) and fail to capture the long-term, endogenous transformations posed by demographic change. To address this gap, this study develops and validates a Subjective Socio-Demographic Resilience (SSDR) Scale grounded in policy adaptation theory (Howlett & Ramesh, 2023; Capano & Woo, 2017). The SSDR links citizen perceptions of adaptability and legitimacy with institutional robustness, providing a psychometric tool to measure how societies perceive their capacity to cope with and adjust to demographic stress.

Unlike conventional system-centered measures, the SSDR Scale emphasizes subjective evaluations—how individuals judge their own and society’s ability to maintain stability (static robustness) or pursue reform (dynamic robustness). This perspective captures the attitudinal foundations of resilience, recognizing that demographic governance depends not only on institutional capacity but also on public confidence in fairness, feasibility, and direction of change.

Empirically, the scale is applied to Taiwan, one of the world’s fastest-ageing societies, transitioning from an aged to a super-aged stage within seven years. Using a nationally representative online survey (N = 1,250; November 2024), we measured perceived resilience across three domains: Healthcare and Eldercare (HE), Employment and Economic Security (EES), and Social Inclusion (SI). Exploratory factor analysis supported this three-domain structure with strong internal consistency (α = .77–.94). Respondents reported the highest resilience in SI (M = 2.97), followed by EES (M = 2.88) and HE (M = 2.73), revealing concerns over healthcare readiness and economic stability.

By integrating subjective perception into the policy adaptation framework, the SSDR Scale offers an analytical basis for aligning institutional robustness with public attitudes—advancing comparative research on resilient governance in ageing societies.

Authors

• Wei-Yu Lin, National Taiwan University
  Presenting Author

• Min-heng Wang, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University
  Non-Presenting Co-Author

• Hongwung Wang, National Taiwan University
  Non-Presenting Co-Author