A Study On The Impact Of Family Support On The Health Of The Elderly

In recent years,the ageing rate in China has continued to rise and the proportion of elderly people has continued to increase,and people have begun to pay more attention to the problems of the elderly as they age.The National Medium-and LongTerm Plan for Actively Addressing the Challenges of Ageing issued by the State Council explicitly mentions the need to "create a social environment conducive to ageing,sincere commitment to and respect for the elderly".Create a family support system and an age-friendly society".Whether and to what extent older people are supported by family members has a significant impact on their health.Data from the China Health Survey 2018(CLHLS)were used to examine the impact of family support on the health of older people.Family support was divided into three dimensions based on the content of family support: daily care,emotional comfort and financial support.Physical health(self-esteem)and psychological health(depression)were used to assess older people’s health.Based on family production theory,hierarchy of needs theory,and feedback theory,descriptive statistics and crosssectional analyses were first performed on the relationships between family support,key personal and socioeconomic characteristics,and older people’s health,and then propensity score matching(PSM)was used to examine the impact of family support on older people’s health.The research results found that daily care has a significant impact on the health of the elderly,and access to daily care has a positive impact on their self-evaluation of health and mental health.Emotional comfort and economic support are discussed according to the situation.Among them,emotional comfort has a significant improvement effect on the self rated health of the elderly,but the relationship between emotional comfort and mental health is not significant;Economic support has a significant positive effect on the mental health of the elderly,while its impact on self rated health is not significant.Subsequently,through the study of sub sample results,it was found that elderly people have a certain demand logic for family support for their children.Simple economic support cannot meet the health needs of elderly people,and they pay more attention to "often going home to see" and "spiritual comfort" accompanying them.In addition,in terms of heterogeneity,family support has a more significant effect on the health improvement of young elderly,rural elderly,and elderly living in households.On the basis of the above conclusions,this thesis makes the following recommendations,taking into account the three dimensions of family support: firstly,to formulate support policies to promote ageing in place;secondly,to promote living close to home to create a harmonious family environment;and thirdly,to vigorously promote loyalty and the informed use of the right to support.