中国空巢老人的生活质量研究——基于家庭养老视角

家庭结构小型化背景下,家庭养老逐渐弱化,由此对中国空巢老人生活质量的影响成为一个广受关注的问题,文章以多维贫困为例,试图从家庭养老的角度对中国空巢老人生活质量展开研究。首先从理论上探讨空巢老人获得家庭养老资源变化与生活质量之间的关系,然后从老年人的视角,利用2009年与2011年中国居民健康与营养调查（CHNS）追踪数据对此进行了实证检验。为克服内生性的影响,采用滞后因变量回归（LDV）考察基期的居住形式在下一期的影响,实证检验了是否空巢所获得家庭养老资源差异对其生活质量的影响。研究发现,空巢增加了生活满意度维度的贫困发生率,降低了收入和健康维度的贫困发生率,综合作用下空巢并没有显著增加老年人多维贫困发生率,且该影响存在显著的城乡、性别和年龄差异。对影响机制分析发现,空巢通过影响老人的经济和非经济支持获得作用于老人贫困：子女的经济支持和配偶的非经济支持保障了空巢老人免于陷入收入和健康维度贫困;子女的非经济支持则在一定程度上降低了老人生活满意度维度的贫困。这意味着在养老资源有限情况下需更多关注独居空巢老人,在鼓励子女关爱老人的同时,还可以鼓励老人通过社会参与弥补缺失的精神慰藉。文章为理解中国空巢老人生活质量提供了新的视角,也为制定政策提供参考。

The Research on the Quality of Life of Empty-nesters in China through the Lens of the Family Pension

The miniaturization of family leads to the gradual weakening of family endowment. The traditional multi-generational family has been replaced by living alone. It brings changes in pension resources. The quality of life of empty nesters in China is getting more and more attention. How does empty affect the quality of life for the Elderly? Theoretically, living apart from the elderly makes it difficult for children to take care of the elderly. Children give more financial support to the elderly instead of daily care. Compared with those who live together, Empty-nesters may receive more financial support from their children and have a lower incidence of economic poverty. On the one hand, Although empty-nesters are more likely to suffer from psychological, spouses can mitigate the adverse effects. More and more researches confirm that spouses play a important role in providing mental support to the elderly. On the other hand, Empty nesters have more time to take care of themselves and are better off being objective and healthy. As the old people who live together devote more energy to caring for their grandchildren, they neglect themselves. In conclusion, Living alone strengthens the economic support and daily care of family, while weakening the spiritual comfort. Therefore, the quality of life of elderly people living alone deserves further study. This paper attempts to study the quality of life of empty nesters in China through the Lens of the family pension. Firstly, the paper discusses the effects of empty nest on the poverty of the elderly based on the different family pension. Secondly, Based on CHNS data from 2009 and 2011, we use the Lagged Dependent Variable Regression to examine above effects, and further analyze the mechanism, which makes the estimation results more reliable. Thirdly, we discuss in detail the differences in the effect of empty nest on the quality of life for different groups; we look at groups that differ by age,female and area.Finally,we analyze why Empty do not worsened the quality of life for Elderly. Our estimates show that Empty nesters are less likely to be deprived of income and health, On the contrary, the life satisfaction has a high probability of deprivation. Overall, the incidence of multidimensional poverty among the elderly did not increase significantly except for rural, older and women. On the one hand, Financial and non-financial supports from Children and spouse protect empty-nesters from income and health poverty. On the other hand, The non-economic supports from children reduces the poverty of the life satisfaction. The Empty nesters rate in China is still high and the quality of life needs to be increased urgently. The evidence also suggests that the elderly living alone should be attention. We should pay more attention to the old who live alone when the resources are limited, and encourage people to take care of their parents, the old also should take an active part in the social interaction for spiritual consolation at the same time.