The Influence Of Family Intergenerational Relationships On Life Satisfaction Of Middle-aged And Elderly People And Its Spatial Differentiation In China

As the most important social unit in China,the family is a fundamental institution permeated with emotions and traditions.For a long time,the family has been a fundamental part of China,deeply embedded in the cultural construction of Chinese social subjectivity through the combined forces of agrarian society,Confucian culture,and patriarchal power structures.Since the founding of New China,especially the implementation of the reform and opening-up policy,the modernization process has had a significant impact on the transformation and change of the family in China.In the process of moving from tradition to modernity,the size,structure and function of the Chinese family,as well as power relations and family morality,have undergone significant changes.The family,as the most Chinese native tradition,has increasingly transformed the institutional and cultural strengths of the traditional Chinese family into an endogenous dilemma.In the face of the forces of social transformation such as globalisation,urbanisation,industrialisation and aging,the Chinese family is declining in the power struggle between the state,society and the market,and is facing many developmental dilemmas due to the miniaturization of scale,fragmentation of relationships,externalization of functions and disintegration of family morality.Based on the real situation of Chinese society,“Bring the family back in”,reshaping the boundaries of responsibilities and functional powers and responsibilities of the family,and actively constructing synergy and organizational links between the family and the government,the market and the community have become important tasks in the construction of Chinese-style modernization.At the same time,under the perspective of the whole life cycle,properly solving the main social contradiction between the growing need for a better life and the unbalanced and insufficient development,satisfying people’s material,social and psychological needs and improving people’s life and quality of life become the key elements of the Communist Party of China(CPC)and the government’s active response to the aging population and the construction of Chinese-style modernization.Therefore,in the process of social and demographic transition,it is important to pay attention to the changes in intergenerational family relationships in contemporary China and their impact on the survival,development,and well-being of family members.From a multidisciplinary perspective,based on family modernization and other related theories,using quantitative and qualitative research methods such as GIS spatial technology,statistical analysis,questionnaires and interviews,this paper focuses on the scientific issue of “family intergenerational relationships and life satisfaction”,which analyzes the adaptive changes in family intergenerational relationships during the modernization process in China,and explains how these changes affect the life satisfaction of contemporary middle-aged and elderly people,and what heterogeneous effects these changes have.In terms of content arrangement,this paper consists of seven chapters,including four parts.The first part is Chapter 1,which mainly introduces the research background,research significance,the progress of related research at home and abroad,and presents the scientific questions as well as defines the research ideas and research contents.The second part is Chapter 2,which is the theoretical foundation and research hypothesis.It mainly introduces the theoretical foundation of family modernization and other related theories,as well as puts forward the research hypothesis.The third part is the empirical analysis,which includes chapters 3 to 6,analyzing the characteristics of modern transformation of Chinese families in the context of the complex intertwining of tradition and modernity,and the influence and spatial differentiation of family intergenerational relationships on the life satisfaction of contemporary middle-aged and elderly people from the perspective of modern transformation.The fourth part is Chapter 7,which is the research conclusion,innovation,research deficiencies and prospects.The main conclusions are as follows:(1)The size of household population is miniaturizing in China,showing a rapid fluctuation and decline.In terms of spatial distribution,the unbalanced development of household size is significant,showing a spatial distribution pattern that varies in both east-west and north-south directions.The level of population urbanization has a significant impact on the size of household population,which forming a negative spatial agglomeration effect.The intergenerational structure of families is flattening,and the“Three-member family” model is no longer the most mainstream model of families,and the one-generation household has become the main form of Chinese families.In terms of spatial distribution,the unbalanced development of the proportion of onegeneration households is significant,showing obvious East-west differences,and the north and south are not obvious..The level of population urbanization has a significant impact on the proportion of one-generation households,which forming a positive spatial agglomeration effect.In the process of modern construction of family,there is an adaptive change in traditional filial ethical culture,forming a dual modern mode of operation in which reciprocal and authority coexist.The reciprocal filial piety based on intimate emotions has strong cultural resilience and becomes the mainstream family ethical value norm,while the authoritative filial identity under hierarchical relations is declining.In the process of modernization,there are group differences in age,gender and urban-rural in traditional filial cultural identity.In terms of spatial distribution,reciprocal filial identity shifted toward homogeneity,and there were significant regional differences in authoritative filial piety.The transformation of traditional Chinese filial culture is related to the macro-geographical environment.The evolutionary paths and formation mechanisms of traditional Chinese filial culture are locally specific under the shaping of historical,social,economic,and political forces,while it does not follow the Western path of modernisation in its entirety.(2)In the process of modernization,the traditional Chinese “feedback model” is inherently stable and inertial,and there is an emotional relational shift in family functioning and family responsibilities.In most Chinese families,middle-aged and elderly people receive financial or caregiving support from their children.In the vast majority of Chinese families,intergenerational family members maintain positive emotional communication and interaction.In less than half of Chinese families,middleaged and elderly people provide financial or caregiving support to their children.In different regions,family intergenerational support behaviors has significant differences.Most middle-aged and elderly Chinese are satisfied with their lives,which showing a fluctuating growth trend,and individual cognitive evaluation tends to be inconsistent.In terms of individual heterogeneity characteristics,there are age,gender and urbanrural differentiation in the life satisfaction of middle-aged and elderly people.At the regional scale,the life satisfaction of middle-aged and elderly people changes from homogeneity to differentiation,shows the characteristics of collapse in the west,and there is a significant difference between the east and the west,which is roughly consistent with the pattern of China’s macroeconomic and social development.At the provincial scale,the life satisfaction of middle-aged and elderly people is not exactly match the pattern of China’s economic and social development.The area north of the Yangtze River is relatively high,and there is a spatial mismatch phenomenon.Among them,Xinjiang is at a high level and has stability.Under the influence of traditional Confucian culture,family intergenerational support is an important factor affecting the life satisfaction of contemporary middle-aged and elderly people.Traditional family functions and family responsibilities are continued in the process of social change and family alteration.Controlling for other conditions,intergenerational family upward economic support,upward caregiving support,two-way emotional support,and downward economic support have significant positive effects on the life satisfaction of contemporary middle-aged and elderly people,while the effect of downward caregiving support is not significant.There were regional differences in the effects of family intergenerational support across regions.(3)There are significant differences in the life satisfaction of contemporary middle-aged and elderly people under different levels of population urbanization.There was no significant positive correlation between the level of population urbanization and life satisfaction of middle-aged and elderly people.The mutual verification is that the level of regional population urbanization does not have a significant positive direct effect on life satisfaction of middle-aged and older people,which controlling for other conditions,may be related to the long-standing traditional urbanization pattern.The regression results show that there is a moderating effect of regional population urbanization level in the relationship between upward caregiving support and life satisfaction of middle-aged and elderly people,with a significantly positive main effect and a significantly negative interaction term.There is a compensatory effect of upward caregiving support on life satisfaction of middle-aged and elderly people under different population urbanization levels.This is related to community differences in spatial opportunity structure and filial cultural pressure.The main effects of upward economic support,two-way emotional support and downward economic support were significant,and the interaction term was not significant,and their effects were not moderated by the regional population urbanization level.The main effect of downward caregiving support was not significant,and its effect was not moderated by the level of regional urbanization.In terms of heterogeneity characteristics,there were group differences and regional differences in the moderating effect of population urbanization level on the relationship between family intergenerational support and life satisfaction of middleaged and elderly people.(4)The case study in Chengdu city shows that most first generation urban onlychild parents are satisfied with their lives,and there are gender differences in life satisfaction,with the life satisfaction of middle-aged and older men is better than women in the same period.The analysis of the dual gender perspective found that having a son may result in lower life satisfaction,especially for women.In the context of fewer children and aging,the family intergenerational relationships of first generation urban only-child families have not been loosened or broken during the modernization process,while there were child gender differences exist in structural,associative,affectual,and functional relationships.There are differences in the effects of different dimensions of family intergenerational relationships on the life satisfaction of first generation urban only-child parents,and there is a moderating effect of gender in their influence path.The effects of structural and associative relationship on life satisfaction of first generation urban only-child parents were not significant,and there were no gender differences.Affectual relationship has a positive effect on life satisfaction of first generation urban only-child parents,and there is a moderating effect of gender.The positive effect on life satisfaction was more pronounced for females compared to males.There was a significant positive effect of normative relationship on life satisfaction of first generation urban only-child parents,and there was a moderating effect of gender,which was beneficial for males.Consensual relationship has a significant gender difference on life satisfaction of first generation urban only-child parents,and is beneficial for males but not females.Functional relationship had a nonsignificant effect on life satisfaction of first generation urban only-child parents.