The Influence Mechanism Of Children’s Helping Behavior Types On Parents’ Happiness From An Intergenerational Perspective

Aging population is a hot topic of global attention and a severe challenge facing our country.The middle-aged and elderly people are facing the decline of their physiological function and learning ability and are in urgent need of outside support to help them adapt to the development of the new era.Considering the importance of the concept of "family" under the Chinese cultural background,the family has become the smallest unit in the pension service system,and the children as the most dependent important family members,how to help parents better adapt to the development of The Times,is worth thinking about.Middle-aged and elderly people between 45 and 60 years old are facing retirement,and their physical and psychological conditions are easy to change.Therefore,this study takes middle-aged and elderly people between 45 and 60 years old as research objects,and intends to discuss and study how the types of children’s helping behaviors affect parents’ happiness from the perspective of intergenerational family support,so as to better play the role of children in parents’ support.Propose countermeasures and suggestions for family support policies in the old-age service system to help realize active aging in China.The main research questions of this paper are:(1)Whether children’s different types of helping behavior have an impact on parents’ happiness and whether there are differences in such effects;(2)The reasons for the influence of different types of children’s helping behaviors on parents’ happiness;(3)Whether the influence of different types of help on parents’ self-efficacy is moderated by parents’ self-esteem traits.In view of this,this paper comprehensively adopts the interview method and questionnaire method to investigate the mediating mechanism and regulating mechanism of different types of children’s helping behavior affecting parents’ happiness.Interview research focuses on the content of children’s help to parents,as well as parents’ reactions and feelings after receiving help.12 parents and their children were interviewed in depth through the self-compiled interview outline of the types of children’s helping behavior.Based on the life experiences of these interviewees,this paper gives a "local" description of their participation in intergenerational help interaction,and carries out in-depth analysis and interpretation.The questionnaire study was conducted on212 senior employees aged 45-60 years from 11 enterprises about the interaction between parents and children to investigate the differences in the influence of children’s helping behavior types on parents’ happiness,the mediating effect of self-efficacy and the moderating effect of parents’ self-esteem traits.This paper mainly draws the following conclusions:(1)Children’s autonomous directed help can have a positive impact on parents’ happiness.(2)Self-efficacy plays a partial mediating role in the influence of children’s autonomous directed help on parents’ happiness.Specifically,children’s autonomous directed help is beneficial to improve parents’ sense of self-efficacy,which is conducive to the improvement of happiness level.(3)Parents’ self-esteem traits moderated the relationship between children’s self-directed help and parents’ self-efficacy.(4)Children’s dependent directed help has no negative effect on parents’ happiness,and self-efficacy does not mediate the effect of children’s dependent directed help on parents’ happiness.Parents’ self-esteem does not positively regulate the relationship between children’s dependent directed help and parents’ self-efficacy.In conclusion,based on existing western research results,this study for the first time adopts a variety of methods to demonstrate the relationship between children’s helping behavior types and parents’ happiness.On this basis,guided by the theory of self-efficacy,this study examines the mechanism and boundary conditions of children’s helping behavior affecting parents’ happiness.The results obtained in this study have theoretical implications for enriching the field of helpful behavior research and practical implications for improving parents’ happiness.