Social Health Insurance And Religious Belief Of Middle-aged And Senior People:Effect And Mechanism

At this stage,China is facing a serious problem of population aging.Due to the uneven population flow between urban and rural areas of China in time and space,the problem of aging is more prominent in rural areas.Among them,some rural middle-aged and senior people believe in religion based on the motivation of "Instrumental Needs",and regard religious belief as a means to obtain social resources and deal with unfavorable environments.Some studies believe that the current phenomenon of "Religious Fever" in rural areas may be related to the insufficient level of social security.As a part of China’s Social Health Insurance System,the New Cooperative Medical Scheme(NCMS)plays a significant role in reducing the burden of farmers’ disease costs and promoting the physical and mental health of farmers.Will its policy effects affect the religious beliefs of the middle-aged and senior people in rural areas? In the context of "Rural Revitalization" and "Persistently Developing China’s Religious in Chinese Context",it is necessary to conduct a series of studies on both to provide a certain marginal contribution to the improvement of China’s Social Health Insurance.However,there are few relevant studies at present,and this thesis will provide new empirical evidence based on the research.The thesis uses the micro tracking survey data of CHARLS(2018)to empirically test the impact of the NCMS on the religious beliefs of rural middle-aged and senior people.The empirical results show that:(1)NCMS can significantly reduce the probability of religious belief among middle-aged and senior people in rural areas;(2)The difference between the Probit and IV-Probit coefficients of core explanatory variables may be due to the lag of impact effect;(3)According to the results of sub-sample regression,the thesis finds that the NCMS has a more significant impact on religious beliefs,which are more prominent in rural,middleaged and male groups,with some differences between economic regions;(4)IV-Probit,the "Two-step Method" and the replacement of the explanatory variable confirm the robustness of the empirical results;(5)In the mechanism analysis,the NCMS can reduce the probability of believing in religion by promoting the mental health and social interaction of rural middleaged and senior people.The thesis will provide new empirical evidence for existing research.The NCMS can not only reduce the burden of disease expenses of the insured residents in rural areas,but also promote the "Rational Religious Belief" of rural middle-aged and senior people in terms of mental health and social interactions.Based on the following research,the thesis puts forward six recommendations:(1)Improve the coordination level of Social Health Insurance;(2)Promote the balance between supply and demand of medical and health services;(3)Emphasize the role of medical care and health management in senior people;(4)Improve the reimbursement procedure for Social Health Insurance in different places;(5)Speed up the improvement of related supporting measures in rural area.