Abstract: As a large number of young adults are coming to the cities，the aging of the rural population has become more serious and the care-taking of the elderly is burdening rural families. Nursing homes are playing a significant role in providing elderly care in China. This paper studies，through investigating six nursing homes in Zunyi，the development and difficulties of nursing homes and proposes some countermeasures. The results show that：the elderly people in nursing homes have a high degree of satisfaction with their material life，but not quite so with their spiritual life. Age，marital status，psychological status，health，and income have remarkable effects on their life quality （average P< 0.05）. In recent years， the infrastructure construction，management systems and service have had substantial improvement in nursing homes in Zunyi；in general，there are still problems such as emphasizing material care more than spiritual care，insufficient non-governmental participation，and low rate of socialized elderly service. To solve these problems，systems and mechanisms of pluralistic coordination， collaboration， and governance should be established with measures taken that combine government guidance and socialized management and connect family care to institutional care.

Key words: nursing homes in rural areas, family care, socialized elderly service, spiritual care