Socioeconomic Status And Retirement Intentions:The Influence Of Family Intimacy

Population aging is an irreversible trend in the world which poses potential risks to socio-economic development and stability.Drawing on the common experience of the international community in dealing with population aging,China has begun to actively explore the progressive delayed retirement system.Although China has clarified the principles of "small-step adjustment,flexible implementation,classified promotion,and overall consideration",how to formulate a specific delayed retirement policy still needs further exploration and research.Previous studies find that economic status is an important factor affecting older people’s intentions to retire.And with the loss of professional roles later in life,family roles—especially marriage and relationships with adult children—become critical to maintaining self-confidence,mental health,and life satisfaction.The purpose of this study is to analyze socioeconomic status ’s effect on retirement intentions among middle-age and elder adults in China,with intergenerational relationship as a mediating variable and marital satisfaction as a moderator variable.Data were obtained from CHARLS(China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study)Wave 4.Ordered logit regression modeling and SEM were adopted to analyze the association among socioeconomic status,intergenerational relationship,marital satisfaction,and retirement intentions.This study found that higher socioeconomic status induced positive delay retirement intentions both directly and indirectly through intergenerational relationship quality,and marital satisfaction effectively weakened the influence of socioeconomic status on retirement intentions.But marital satisfaction only acted as a moderator for the male cohort.It can be seen that the influence of family on retirement intentions is significant.Fostering positive intergenerational relationships between parents and children is critical to improving older parents’ attitudes toward retirement.At the same time,when formulating specific delayed retirement policies and services,the key role of family factors on retirement intentions needs to be considered to ensure that families and society provide adequate and balanced financial and emotional support for the elderly.Actively responding to aging and formulating a gradual delayed retirement policy can reduce the pressure on pension payments and optimize the structure of the workforce.First,multiple initiatives should be taken to improve socio-economic status.Governments,businesses and individuals should work in different ways to improve the socio-economic status of the workforce.Second,we must give full play to the function of family security.We should call on society to strengthen family exchanges,carry forward the traditional Chinese culture of filial piety,attach importance to the fulfillment of marriage commitments,and let families assume certain social responsibilities from multiple channels.Finally,develop differentiated retirement policies.Differentiated retirement policies help to meet different retirement intentions.