The Impact Of Housing Wealth On The Elderly’s "Working After Retirement" Behavior

The elderly who have retired but continue to participate in labor are called "working after retirement" workers.With the extension of the life expectancy and the improvement of the health level,the phenomenon of " working after retirement " is becoming more and more common.At the same time,thanks to the reform of housing marketization and the continuous advancement of urbanization,rising housing prices have enabled some elderly people to rapidly accumulate housing wealth.It is also because of the high housing prices that some elderly people need to "work hard" to help their children "settle down" in the city.Thesis analyzes the influencing factors of elderly people’s " working after retirement" behavior and focuses on exploring the impact of housing wealth on elderly people’s "working after retirement " behavior.Starting from the policy and reality background,thesis proposes the problems that the article wants to solve.At the same time,we systematically sort out the concepts,the theoretical and research status of labor supply for the elderly.Then,thesis conducts a descriptive statistical analysis of the current situation and trends of "working after retirement" among the elderly in China and explores the reasons for the urban-rural difference in the proportion of "working after retirement" behavior.Finally,based on constructing a basic theoretical model and proposing research hypotheses,we uses data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study(CHARLS)in 2018 to study the relationship between housing wealth and the "working after retirement" behavior of the elderly from both breadth(whether "working after retirement")and depth(labor time)dimensions,and explores the mediating effects of bequest motive and cost effect on the relationship between housing wealth and the "working after retirement" behavior of the elderly.The main conclusions of thesis are as follows:(1)The "working after retirement" behavior of the elderly is influenced by many factors.Age,gender,health status,education,whether there are children in school,whether there are unmarried children,intergenerational care,whether to receive pensions,personal debts,family fixed assets,and regional factors will all affect the elderly’s "working after retirement " behavior.(2)There is a significant negative correlation between housing wealth and whether "working after retirement" among the elderly.The more housing wealth,the higher the probability of "working after retirement" for the elderly.There is also a significant negative correlation between housing wealth and the labor time of the elderly,the more housing wealth for the elderly,the shorter their labor time.At the same time,considering the potential endogeneity problem of reverse causality and omitted variables,thesis introduces "the value of housing per unit area in the same village/residential unit" as an instrumental variable for housing wealth,and the conclusions still hold.(3)Thesis uses whether there is an unmarried son as a proxy variable for bequest motive.The results show that the interaction between whether there is an unmarried son and housing wealth is not significant in relation to weather "working after retirement" among the elderly.However,the interaction between whether there is an unmarried son and housing wealth is significantly positively correlated with the labor time of the elderly,it indicates that the weakening effect of bequest motive exists in the negative correlation between housing wealth and the labor time of the elderly.This mediating effect of bequest motive is mainly reflected in rural elderly and elderly men.(4)Thesis paper selects whether the mortgage is being repaid as the proxy variable of cost effect.The results of thesis show that the interception of whether the mortgage is being repaid and housing wealth is significantly positively related to the labor time of the elderly.The cost effect brought by the mortgage has significantly reduced the role of increasing housing wealth to reduce the labor time of the elderly.However,the mediation of cost effect on the relationship between housing wealth and weather "working after retirement" is not significant.This moderating effect of cost effect is established in both urban and rural sub-samples.In terms of gender,the moderating effect of cost effect on the relationship between housing wealth and working hours of the elderly is mainly reflected in elderly women.Thesis enriches the research on elderly labor supply and provides reference for the optimization of relevant policies.In view of the above research conclusions,thesis believes that the labor supply of the elderly can be optimized from the following aspects:firstly,the government should improve relevant housing policies,stabilize market expectations and avoid the crowding-out effect of rapid increase in housing prices on elderly labor supply.Secondly,protecting the legitimate rights and interests of "working after retirement" workers by improving relevant laws and regulations and providing vocational training for reemployment.Thirdly,the government is better to gradually promote the delayed retirement policy and constantly improve the relevant supporting measures of the delayed retirement policy,such as gradually improving the social security system and establishing a comprehensive childcare market system.