贫困是否影响农村中老年人的精神健康——基于CHARLS数据的实证研究

农村老年人在经济上是最为弱势的群体，他们的贫困发生率远远高于城市老人。贫困不仅体现为物质上的剥夺，更会引起认知退化和抑郁等精神健康上的问题。文章使用中国健康与养老追踪调查数据，实证考察经济状况对农村中老年人精神健康的影响。多层线性模型估计结果表明：家庭人均年收入每提高一千元，反映认知状况的情景记忆显著提高0.132分、精神状态显著提高0.121分，而反映抑郁程度的CES-D则显著下降0.293分。进一步分析表明，收入对精神健康的促进作用对高收入者更大。考虑到农村更加严重的老龄化程度，通过减贫实现农村中老年人精神健康状况的改善将具有重要的现实意义。

Does Poverty Impact Mental Health Empirical Evidence from Chinese Rural Elderly

Rural elderly is the most economically disadvantaged group in China in terms of poverty incidence rate. Poverty not only indicates material deprivation but also may causes mental health problem. This paper use data from the second round of China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study survey to empirically analyze the effect of economic status on mental health of rural elderly. Cognition and depression are utilized to measure mental health. Linear multi-level model estimation results shows that episodic memory score and mental status score improve 0.132 and 0.121 respectively with additional one thousand yuan of per capita household income. On the other side, CES-D score significantly decline 0.293 with the same economic improvement. Different specifications of income variable reach the same conclusion that economic status exerts a positive effect on mental health. We also find that high income group benefits more from economic improvement. Considering the severe aging of rural elderly, poverty reduction action may take to improve the mental health of rural elderly.