Elderly Education:Welfare, Relieve And Investment

Since the 70’s of the last century, The education for the aged has been a large scale, organization and popularization. Why so many old peoples choose to accept education, why the society do this arrangement, how many private returns are old peoples get and social returns are socity get, and whether the resources allocation are optimal, hitherto no literature answers these questions, and the answers are mearningful to resolve aging problems.Regarding life extension and many types of elderly education as cutting points, using theoretical model and empirical test, this paper tries to undo this mystery of elderly education. The internal logic of this paper in turn is that observating objects and putting forward proposition, longevity’s effects on elderly employment and education behaviors, capacity cultivated by education influencing on the diversity of returns to education, elderly education’s influence on the life quality of older people, analyzing the social and economy developing conditions, international comparison and analysis of resource allocation, and conclusions and policy recommendations lastly. Our main conclusions are in the following main aspects:In aging socity, older people has an important feature of longevity, so elderly education has diverse forms, and has many functions. This two features as cutting points help us understand elderly education correctly. The proposition is that firstly the elderly education is welfare way of older peoples, expanding their functions (activities) and capacities can increase older people’s welfare; secondly, the elderly education is relieve way of the vulnerable elderly groups; and at last, at an aging socity, with the increasing demand for employment the elderly education will raise the working abilities of older people.older people’s education behavior is determined by their inner economic incentives, and is a rational choice adapt to longevity. An optimizing plan model based on the individual choices of olders and longevity shows that older people would increase their work years and education years, added educat ion promote added work. The Probit analysis based on CHARLS data of 2011 confirms that the added education after adults significantly increase the work probability of old and quasi-old people. Life extension, and the aging population increasing the expenditures, the older people only increasing the time of education and work, can compensate the added spendings.So, these results prove that at an aging socity, the elderly education will increase the working abilities of older people, and for vulnerable elderly groups be a capacity relieve.But for now, so many other older people, not for getting a job and income, and what kinds of profits are they get, no literature explains that quant i tatively. The reasons must be looked from resource, and we must consider the capacities cultivated by education how to influence the diversity of returns to education. Elderly education as a kind of education, the mechanism getting returns to education is also suitable for elderly education. From literatures the findings are that the returns to education are diverse, and the reasons of which are from the diverse capacities cultivated by education. Capabilities are important intermediate variables which are between the investment for man and it’s returns. Using human capatial to explain the diversity of returns to education has limitation. Huaman capital is the only capitalized capacities cuvalted by education, these capacities can be done in other fields, so education can produce many other non-economic and non-monetary returns. Education raises many kinds of capacities, which help us complete many kinds of activities in many fields, and produce many kinds of returns. The capacities cultivated by education can be devided into reconginition, daily life, work, socializing, and innovation. Uncapitalized capacities can’t get the monetary returns like capital, it’s mechanism of capacity getting returns is capacity and activity model.Capacity structure unit combined by bascial capacity directly act many activities. A typical activity depends on co-operation of capacity structure unit, and the returns occured. Capacity structure unit can self-modified, self-raised, and self-innovated, and capacity can be copy, communication, and self-growing, so produce externality.So, a more realistic observations is that elderly education can significantly increase the life quality of older people, and also increase their welfare. Sen’s capability approach theory shows that more objective and more accurative judgment of life quality should be to evaluate the functions or activities which people have completed and their capabilities. elderly education is not only an activity, but teaching older peoples with many activities and it’s capacities. The ability of work raised by elderly education maybe weak, but other abilities may not become weak, even become stronger. These abilities and elderly education itself, help older people expand their functions (activities), and increase their welfare. The added welfare by school can be expressed: Taking the social participation as example, the empirical study using CHARLS data of 2011 estimates the marginal return to elderly education is about 2.4-3.2, which means that 2-3 kinds of new activities should be expanded or an activity persistently increased. So obviously, for increasing welfare, many older peoples like attending school very much.It is necessary to allocate resource optimally that the development of education for the aged is limited by the stage of economic development and resource constraints. The per capital GDP 10000 USD is a symbol of start, and the development of the third industry promotes it. The per capital GDP in china is 5000 USD in 2011, so china lacks the resource to develop elderly education. With increasingly aging, the population of elderly education will be increased by 2-7 times. Supply shortage and increasing demand require optimal allocating educational resources. The development of elderly education could not be accomplished at one stroke, and is a complex system engineering, which is affected by many factors in the system, such as household registration, social security, retirement system, etc. The comparison of typical paradigms in different countries provides a useful reference, such as sharing colleges and universities, government management centralization, community service, self-help and autonomous, non-profit enterprises, etc.This research has important policy implications. Firstly, elderly education is capability relief. Making use of older labor resources in aging society is an important measure to reduce the labor shortage. For older people are different each other, the policy prolonging work years should provide some ability relief for the vulnerable elderly groups and satisfy their work needs. Secondly, education should emphsis on cultivating capacity, including elderly education. So evaluating the quality level of education not how many capitals being invested, but what and how many abilities are cultivated. For elderly educat ion, cultivating recognition, living, production, socialized abilities, and innovative abilities should be increased. Thirdly, increasing the supply for elderly education. At the same time of increasing public expenditure, the government should change centralized management model, by policy guidance and funding, instruct non-profit enterprises, non-governmental organizations, charities to provide education service through market, relying on community and giving greater fiscal power to the basic level of government.Innovative research achievements:Firstly, discorying the limitation of human capital theory to explain the diverse returns to education, first put forward the conceptions of typical activities, capacity structure unit, capability trees. Through capacity structure unit the capabilities raised by education can complete many kinds of activities, and capabilities can continuously grow, form innovation and get returns at last. Secondly, from the point of decision making by older people introducing economics framework to analyze the choices of older people first time, finding the economic incentives and the evidence of the elderly education behavior These researches provide theoretical and empirical evidences for older human capital development. Thirdly, carrying on the theoretical and empirical study to testify that elderly education can increase the life quality of older people, and find the evidence to develop elderly education. Fourthly, clarifying the inner relationship between old-age education and social and economic conditions at first time. The percapital GDP 10000 is a symbol of start, the development of the third industry promotes it.Problems under further discussion:firstly, the mechanism that the capabili ty cultivated by education influence diverse returns to education is lacking testifying, the conceptions of typical activities, capacity structure unit, capability trees need enriched and improved. Secondly, how to measure all returns to elderly education. Because many returns to elderly education are difficult to measure by money, lack a unified standard to evaluate all kinds of returns. All of this needs innovations in research methods.