Study On The Influence Of Intergenerational Care On The Health Of Middle-Aged And Elderly People

In the process of the continuous development of market economy,more and more women enter the workplace,and the number of dual-employee families increases,so both husband and wife have no time to take care of their children.With the further liberalization of China’s birth policy,the pressure on both husband and wife to take care of their children will further increase.In addition,the current social child care service system is not perfect,and the responsibility of taking care of their grandchildren will be borne by more middle-aged and elderly people.At the same time,with the accelerating process of population aging in China,the number of elderly people is increasing,and after entering the old age,people will face many health problems such as chronic diseases,dysfunction and psychological depression.The continuous expansion of middle-aged and elderly people and the change of new lifestyles will not only have a direct impact on their physical and mental health,quality of life and happiness,but also affect the implementation of the "Healthy China 2030" Planning Outline.Under the background of "healthy aging",we should pay attention to the relationship between intergenerational care and the health of middle-aged and elderly people.In order to explore the intergenerational care and health status quo of middle-aged and elderly people in China,and to study the impact of intergenerational care on their health and the mechanism between them,this thesis,from a micro perspective,uses the data of China Health and Pension Follow-up Survey(CHARLS)in 2015 and 2018 to construct indicators to measure their physical and mental health,and comprehensively examines the intergenerational care and health status quo of middle-aged and elderly people in China from multiple dimensions such as gender,age and urban and rural areas.On this basis,through OLS benchmark regression,this thesis explores the influence of intergenerational care,care intensity and care quantity on the health of middle-aged and elderly people,and whether the influence of intergenerational care on the health of different middle-aged and elderly groups is heterogeneous in gender,urban and rural areas,age and living arrangement.In addition,in order to deal with the endogenous problem that intergenerational care and the health of middle-aged and elderly people may be mutually causal,the propensity score matching method(PSM)is used to explore the health differences between middle-aged and elderly people with and without intergenerational care,so as to verify the robustness of the benchmark regression results.Then,based on intergenerational exchange theory,moderate labor theory and activity theory,this thesis constructs an intermediary effect model to explore the mechanism of intergenerational care on the health of middle-aged and elderly people from three perspectives: inside the family,outside the family and the middle-aged and elderly individuals themselves.Finally,according to the empirical research results,some policy suggestions are put forward to provide theoretical and practical support for formulating and optimizing the policy of "actively responding to the aging problem" in China.This paper draws the following conclusions:(1)It is common for middle-aged and elderly people to take care of their grandchildren from generation to generation in China,among which four groups,namely,female middle-aged and elderly people,middle-aged and elderly people aged 51 to 70,middle-aged and elderly people in rural areas and middle-aged and elderly people with low academic qualifications,mainly bear the responsibility of taking care of their grandchildren from generation to generation.(2)For the middle-aged and elderly people who have grandchildren under 16 years old,participating in intergenerational care has a significant positive impact on their physical and mental health.After using the propensity score matching method to deal with the possible endogenous problems caused by the sample self-selection deviation and testing the robustness,the conclusion is still valid.(3)For the middle-aged and elderly people who have provided intergenerational care,there is a significant positive correlation between the care intensity and the depression index of the middle-aged and elderly people.With the increase of the length of care for grandchildren,the mental health status of the middle-aged and elderly people will deteriorate.In addition,the amount of care has a significant negative impact on the physical health of middle-aged and elderly people.With the increase of the number of grandchildren,the physical health of middle-aged and elderly people will become worse.(4)The results of sub-sample estimation show that the influence of intergenerational care on the physical and mental health of middle-aged and elderly people is significantly heterogeneous,and the influence of intergenerational care on the physical and mental health of female middle-aged and elderly people,groups aged 45 to 60 and rural middle-aged and elderly people is more significant and positive.(5)In addition to the direct influence,intergenerational care will indirectly affect the physical and mental health of middle-aged and elderly people through the internal mechanism of the family,the external mechanism of the family and the individual’s own mechanism.From the perspective of family,intergenerational care can improve the physical and mental health of middle-aged and elderly people by improving their children’s financial support.In addition,intergenerational care will improve the mental health of middle-aged and elderly people by increasing the frequency of meeting their children.Based on the external perspective of the family,intergenerational care will improve the physical and mental health of middle-aged and elderly people by increasing their frequency of social interaction.Based on the perspective of middle-aged and elderly people,intergenerational care will occupy the lunch break of middle-aged and elderly people to a certain extent,which is not conducive to their mental health.Based on the above research conclusions,this paper puts forward some policy suggestions,such as encouraging middle-aged and elderly people to provide appropriate intergenerational care,improving the social care service system and providing intergenerational care subsidies,formulating flexible delayed retirement policies,and actively creating activity places suitable for the elderly and children in grassroots communities.