In the context of public budget cuts and rural areas facing depopulation and aging, local governments increasingly encourage citizen engagement in addressing local livability issues. This paper examines the non-engagement of mid-aged and elderly residents (45+ years old) in civic initiatives that intend to improve the livability of their community. We focus on residents of depopulating rural areas in the North Netherlands. We compare their engagement with the behavior of residents in other, not depopulating, rural areas, and urban areas. Using logistic statistical analyses, we found that the majority of the aging residents did not engage in civic livability initiatives during the past two years, and one-third of this group had no intention to do so in the future. In all areas, the main reasons for non-engagement were that residents had other priorities, felt not capable of engaging, or felt that the responsibility for local livability belonged to the local government. Furthermore, it appeared that non-engagement was predominantly explained by the unwillingness to engage, rather than by specific motivations or lacking abilities.

中文翻译：

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中老年人不参与农村城市宜居计划

在公共预算削减和农村地区面临人口减少和老龄化的背景下，地方政府越来越鼓励公民参与解决当地的宜居问题。本文研究了中老年居民（45 岁以上）不参与旨在提高社区宜居性的公民倡议。我们专注于荷兰北部人口减少的农村地区的居民。我们将他们的参与与其他非人口减少的农村地区和城市地区的居民的行为进行了比较。使用逻辑统计分析，我们发现大多数老龄居民在过去两年没有参与公民宜居计划，这组人中有三分之一没有打算在未来这样做。在所有领域，不参与的主要原因是居民有其他优先事项，觉得没有能力参与，或者觉得当地宜居的责任属于当地政府。此外，不参与似乎主要是由不愿意参与来解释的，而不是由特定的动机或缺乏能力来解释的。