The Impact Of Basic Medical Insurance For Urban And Rural Residents On The Labor Supply Of The Elderly In China

China’s ageing is deepening,the elderly dependency ratio continues to increase,the birth rate is declining,the labour market is facing problems such as shortage of supply and structural imbalance,and there are challenges such as insufficient future labour supply,among which,effectively improving the labour supply capacity of the labour force will help to improve the current problems.In January 2016,China officially introduced the integration of urban residents’ basic The policy of integrating urban and rural residents’ basic medical insurance and new rural cooperative medical insurance into urban and rural residents’ basic medical insurance,whose degree of protection continues to increase with the improvement of the system,effectively improving the utilisation of medical services and the health of residents,and the improvement of workers’ health human capital will have influences on labour supply behaviour;at the same time,urban and rural residents’ basic medical insurance,through policies such as reimbursement of medical expenses,improves residents’ s financial accessibility,the improvement in workers’ economic status will also have influences on labour supply behaviour.In November 2021,the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council promulgated the Opinions on Strengthening Ageing Work in the New Era,which made comprehensive plans to promote ageing work in China,of which the development of elderly power resources was listed as an important task.The accumulation of middle-aged people’s work experience as well as life experience has led to a deeper understanding of work and tapping into their potential labour supply capacity,which is profit to improve the quality of labour supply.As the incidence of disease gradually increases and becomes younger,the impact of health risks on middle-aged and older people will affect their labour supply decisions,and the fact that middle-aged and older groups are forced by economic needs or have accumulated a certain economic base will all have an impact on labour The study is based on the middle-aged and elderly.Therefore,taking the middle-aged and elderly groups as the target of research,studying the impact of urban and rural residents’ basic medical insurance on labour supply will be of great significance to the study of the effect of health insurance integration,the stable and long-term development of the labour market and the sustainable growth of the economy.Based on data from the 2018 China Health and Pension Tracking Survey,this paper takes labour participation and labour supply time as dependent variables,and refines labour into agricultural and non-agricultural labour,and finds through empirical analysis methods that the insurance significantly increases nonagricultural labour participation and non-agricultural labour time,and significantly decreases agricultural labour participation and agricultural labour time.To test the robustness of results,labour force participation was tested using a Logit model and a linear regression model,while the explanatory variables were replaced to test that the regression results were robust.For endogeneity issues arising from unobservable variables,the instrumental variables approach was used to correct for this,and the regression analysis were still found to be significant when tested with community participation rate as the instrumental variable.Heterogeneity analysis revealed that the non-farm labour promotion effect was more significant for women,low financial assets,and eastern regional groups.Finally,based on the literature and theory,a mediating effects model is used to investigate the mechanism of the impact of urban and rural basic medical insurance on labour supply for the middle-aged and elderly groups,and the robustness of the mediating effects is tested by Sobel and Bootstrap methods.The outcome variables were divided into non-farm labour participation,non-farm labour time,agricultural labour participation and agricultural labour time to test whether the health effect,substitution effect and income effect existed.The study found that the influence path of health effect and substitution effect existed in both non-farm and agricultural labour,and was tested by Sobel and Bootstrap.According to the previous analysis,some feasible suggestions are put forward:firstly,allocate medical resources rationally,narrow the gap in medical services,strengthen the construction of medical institutions in the western region,enhance the accessibility of medical services for residents,shorten the distance to medical treatment,effectively improve the health of residents and enhance the labour supply capacity;secondly,focus on the disadvantaged groups,tilt medical resources,give attention to low financial assets and elderly groups The third is to make reasonable use of the substitution effect and ensure that medical coverage is moderate.In the design of the basic medical insurance system,it is necessary to take into account the effect of medical insurance in consolidating the fight against poverty,make reasonable use of the substitution effect and prevent the income effect,but also to maintain medical coverage within In the design of the basic medical insurance system,the effect of medical insurance in consolidating poverty alleviation is need to be considered,making reasonable use of the substitution effect and preventing the income effect,but also to maintain medical insurance within an appropriate range and strive to achieve the optimal output of labour.The research in this paper also helps to enrich the study of the effects of urban-rural health insurance integration,providing new ideas to alleviate the pressure of demographic structure and ageing,and promoting sustainable economic development.