| Population aging has proved to be the most significant trend of people’s development in the21st century. According to statistics, China, the only large country with more than100million aged populations in the world, has witnessed a rapid increase of60-year-old and above population exceeding200million by the end of2013. Owing to the vast number of aged population, the welfare of them can exert enormous impact not only on themselves or their family, but also on the country and the whole society, thus attracting public attention. Therefore, it is of great importance to investigate on current welfare condition of aged population, explore its influence mechanism and put forward specific suggestions and measures for the sake of smooth realization of population aging.The data of this dissertation comes from two surveys conducted in Chongqing by taking60-year-old and above population as samples. Based on the fact that previous domestic researches on elderly population’s wellbeing focused too much on economy and psychological condition of aged population, this study proceeds from capability approach welfare thought put forward by Amartya Sen and investigates on the condition of elderly population’s five outstanding functioning, including:objective material welfare, daily activities, healthy behavior, health state and medical treatment seeking and subjective wellbeing. On this basis, this study attempts to explore influence mechanism affecting aged population’s welfare based on two different social capital theory analytic paradigms.The following conclusions can be reached in this study by theoretical analysis and empirical test.(1) On elderly population’s objective material welfare. Among aspects of cognitive social capital, as for economic income, acquaintance trust at community level and general trust, public participation and reciprocity at individual level have influence on aged population’s welfare, but only the influence of reciprocity at individual level is positive. As for their family durable goods, institution trust at community level and acquaintance trust at individual level have an effect on their value, and both institution trust at community level and reciprocity at individual level have influence on the varieties and numbers of durable goods, among which the influence of reciprocity at individual level is restricted by acquaintance trust at community level. Among aspects of network social capital, relative destiny of important festival network has negative impact on aged population’s objective material welfare, while the impact of network resource and catering network is positive. At the same time, the increased value of important festival network scale and friend destiny of daily interaction network help promote aged population possessing family durable goods. After model comparison, community has the most significant impact on the varieties of their family durable goods, and network scale and its destiny have the most explaining power.(2) On elderly population’s daily activities. Among aspects of cognitive social capital, although both their basic daily activities and complex daily activities are influenced by variables at individual level, only their basic daily activities are influenced by institution trust and acquaintance trust at community level, with their basic daily activities significantly influenced by general trust at individual level and complex daily activities significantly influenced by reciprocity at individual level. Among aspects of network social capital, network resource, daily interaction network and catering network exert great impact on their daily activities functioning, only relative destiny of daily interaction network negatively influencing their daily activities functioning. By model comparison, it indicates moderate correlation between community and two types of daily activities functioning and shows that network scale and its destiny have no significant effect.(3) On elderly population’s healthy lifestyle. Among aspects of cognitive social capital, public participation, acquaintance trust and institution trust at community level exert significant impact on the likelihood of aged population smoking, drinking and taking exercise respectively, and at individual level, the higher the degree of acquaintance trust is, the more likely aged people will be to smoke and take exercise, the influence on the latter varying significantly in different communities. Among aspects of network social capital, important festival network scale has important effect on aged population smoking, drinking, and so does daily social network on their drinking and exercising behavior. In addition, catering network and the top of important festival network facilitate their drinking and taking exercise respectively. It can be found through model comparison that cognitive social capital at community level exerts the most significant influence on aged population’s drinking behavior, followed by their exercising and smoking behavior.(4) On elderly population’s health and medical treatment seeking. As for health, among the aspects of cognitive social capital, institution trust at community level has significant negative influence on the chance of suffering from chronic diseases for aged population, while higher level of reciprocity and public participation directly increase the possibility that aged population tend to rate themselves as healthy ones; at individual level, the higher level of institution trust and acquaintance trust is, the less likely aged population will be to develop chronic diseases and the more likely they will be to rate themselves healthy. And for the factors which have impacts on self-rated health, different levels have interaction effect. Among aspects of network social capital, important festival network, one of three kinds of social capital, exerts the greatest effects, especially on self-rated health. As for medical treatment seeking for chronic disease, relative destiny of daily interaction network and acquaintance trust at individual level have significant negative influence, the influence of the latter significantly moderated by many factors at community level. Taking advantage of mode comparison, cognitive social capital at community level has the greatest influence on the possibility of aged population’s developing chronic diseases, followed by self-rated health and medical treatment seeking for chronic disease.(5) On elderly population’s subjective well-being. Among aspects of cognitive social capital, institution trust, public participation and general trust at community level have significant influence on their sense of anxiety, depression and subjective well-being; at individual level, the influence of acquaintance trust is complex, with its higher score enhancing old people’s sense of anxiety but reducing their sense of depression. More reciprocal perceptions of old people reduce the sense of depression and raise their subjective well-being. In addition, the influence of cognitive social capital on their sense of anxiety and depression is restricted by community factors. Regarding network social capital, network resource variables in important festival network has remarkable effect on three kinds of aged population’s subject wellbeing in this study. Daily interaction network exerts great impact on their sense of anxiety and subject wellbeing. And the increase of catering opportunities enhances reducing their sense of anxiety. After comparing models, it indicates moderate correlation between community and aged population’s subjective wellbeing, and the grade of influence (from high to low) as follows:sense of depression, sense of anxiety and sense of subjective wellbeing. Among aspects of network social capital, variables of network resource play the most significant role whether in model explaining power or in influence significance.At last, based on the above conclusions, this dissertation has presented relevant suggestions and measures on how to improve and enhance aged population’s wellbeing. |
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