晚年独居意味着孤独吗?——基于社会网络的调节与中介作用分析

老年人独居比例和孤独感的上升已经成为家庭现代化转型中的典型现象,现有对二者关系的研究忽视了社会网络的视角。基于2014年中国老年健康影响因素跟踪调查数据,利用潜在类别分析和logistic回归模型考察了社会网络在老年人独居和孤独感之间所发挥的作用。研究发现,老年人独居并不意味着会感到孤独,不同类型的社会网络加重或缓解了独居带来的孤独感上升。具体而言:第一,老年人社会网络可以分为多元-活跃型、社会-消极型、子女-消极型和单一-活跃型四种类型;资源禀赋丰富的老年人具有多元-活跃型社会网络的概率更大。第二,仅具有子女-消极型社会网络的老年人,单人独居才会显著提升他们的孤独感。第三,单人独居和夫妇独居老年人均会通过多元-活跃型的社会网络缓解自身孤独感。应通过积极的公共政策,从能力建设和社区环境营造两方面,推动老年人社会网络向多元-活跃型转变。

Does Living Alone in Old Age Means Loneliness?——Analysis on the Moderation and Mediation of Social Network

The increasing proportion of the elderly living alone and loneliness has become a ty-pical phenomenon in the process of family modernization.However, the existing research on the relationship between the two ignored the perspective of social network.Based on the survey data of CLHLS in 2014,this paper used latent categories analysis and logistic regression model to investigate the role of the social network in the elderly living alone and loneliness.It can be found that old people who live alone do not necessarily feel lonely, and different types of social networks accentuate or mitigate the increase of loneliness for old people who are living alone.Specifically speaking :(1)Social networks for the Chinese old people can be divided into four types: diverse-active, society-passive, child-passive and single-active;the old people with the rich resource are more likely to have a diverse-active social network.( 2) Living alone significantly increased loneliness in older people with child-negative social networks.( 3) Older people who live alone or only with a spouse can alleviate their loneliness through diverse-active social networks. This paper argues that it is important to promote the transformation of old people’s social network from child-passive to diverse-active through the positive public policy from capacity building and rebuilding community environment.