| The population aging trend has been accelerated continuously since China became an aging country since 1999. By the end of 2013, people age 60 and over had reached 202.43 million, accounting for 14.9% of the population, people age 65 and 65 had reached 131.61 million, accounting for 9.7% of the total population. The development law of the world population development shows that population aging is an inevitable trend in the development of human society, and no nation can be exception. We can’t avoid the problem of China’s rapid population aging development, but we can choose to cope with the challenge of the aging population in a positive way. To actively cope with the population aging problem, we need to discuss the factors that affect the Subjective Well-Being of the elderly residents, the relationship among these factors and the role each factor plays in the effect of the elderly residents’ well-being.At present there are lots of theoretical researches on population aging problem, but little attention has put on the elderly’s feelings and their Subjective Well-Being under this situation. For the elderly residents, the physiological and psychological changes, the change of the economic status and social role transformation easily cause the adjustment problems. Some scholars carried out study with some national survey data, the results show that elder residents in our country have high prevalence of depressive symptoms. Health condition, economic factors and social support have remarkable influences on the incidence of depression in elderly people. That highlights the importance and significance of the research on the Subjective Well-Being and its influencing factors on the elderly people. In fact, many countries have taken the improvement of residents’ well-being as an administrative program. If the government aims at the establishment of old people’s happiness, it is important to find the factors that influence the happiness of the elderly residents.Since 1970s, western scholars have been introduced the paradigm of economic analysis to the Subjective Well-Being (Subject Well-Being, SWB) study, which started the study of Subjective Well-Being in the perspective of economics, Subjective Well-Being has become the hot topic in sociology, psychology and economics. With the deepening of the research, scholars have found that personal Subjective Well-Being is not only related to population statistical variables, but also related to absolute income. relative income, income inequality, housing, economic growth, unemployment and other economic factors, as well as social class, social capital, social security, the government public, environmental pollution and other social factors. These studies gradually formed the happiness economics.The research on aging problem in developed countries began earlier than that in our country. Many scholars abroad study the factors affecting the well-being of elderly residents from the perspectives of economics. On the contrast, the domestic related literature is limited, the research usually carried on the factors on health, disease, psychology, it rarely contains comprehensive analysis of the factors affecting the Chinese elder residents’ well-beine. And these are exactly what the Chinese government must consider in challenging of the current population aging problem and construct a well-off society. Based on these thinking, this thesis analyzes the data of influencing factors of China’s elderly residents’happiness from the large Chinese General Social Survey (China General Social Survey, CGSS) in 2010 jointly hosted by Renmin university of China, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.The thesis mainly uses qualitative and quantitative analysis method to explore influencing factors of Subjective Well-Being of the elderly residents in our country. First, it sorts out domestic and foreign scholars’analysis on the factors that impact the elderly residents’Subjective Well-Being, combines the theory of economics, sociology, psychology, discusses the influencing factors of the elderly residents’ Subjective Well-Being, so as to improve and enrich the relevant theory of happiness economics in our country. Second, it uses the quantitative analysis method to do research on the influencing factors of Subjective Well-Being of the elderly residents in our country through the adoption of discrete variables regression, generalized ordered discrete variable regression, factor analysis and structural equation, score matching method and the data based on China’s general social survey (CGSS2010) middle-aged and old residents of survey data. The empirical results mainly have three aspects:Firstly, the demographic factors have a great effect on happiness of the elderly residents in China. In simple terms, the well-being of the residents increases with the increase of their age, women residents have better well-being than men, level of education increases the Subjective Well-Being of the elderly residents through the increase of income. Health, marriage, the number of children can significantly affect the elderly residents’happiness, the happiness of the elderly residents of ethnic minority elderly residents is better than the Han nationality, the identity of the party members can bring more happiness to the elderly.Secondly, economic factors play an important role in the well-being of elderly residents in China.Absolute income and relative income can significantly increases the happiness of the elderly residents. A household car can significantly increase the well-being of the elderly. Consumer pressure can significantly affect the happiness of the elderly residents; the income gap can increase the happiness of the elderly. The unemployment rate can significantly reduce the well-being of the elderly, unexpected inflation rate can significantly reduce the well-being of the elderly.Thirdly, the social factors have a great effect on happiness. Social class can affect the well-being of the elderly:Social capital can significantly increase the elderly residents of happiness:Social security can significantly increase the elderly residents of happiness; Environmental pollution will reduce the well-being of the residents. Urbanization can significantly affect the elderly residents of happiness, but for different groups, the role may not be the same.Corresponding policy Suggestions:First. the government should develop the silver-hair industry, let the elderly residents be happy, be raised and be helpful Second, strengthen the government funding, set up perfect the social security system. take various measures to improve the income and the health of elderly residents: Third, A variety of measures must be taken to increase social capital, and social mobility. of the elderly residents. thus increase their happiness; Fourth, create beneficial economic and social environment; Five, continue to implement policies for a few vulnerable groups to improve their well-being, increase social harmony.This paper includes six chapters:the first chapter is introduction, mainly introduces the concept of happiness, the ancient and the modern Chinese and foreign understanding of happiness. Then it put forward the meaning of studying Subjective Well-Being of the elderly under the background of accelerated aging in China. The second chapter is literature review. First, it theoretically combs the research on happiness from home and abroad, in the history as well as the modern time. Then it introduces the measurement methods-ordered Logit regression and generalized ordered Logit regression, factor analysis and structural equation multivariate statistical regression. The third chapter is theoretical analysis of the influential factors of happiness. Based on the existing literature, the thesis analyzes the influencing factors of happiness from the demographic factors, the economic factors and the social factors. Then it outlines the influencing factors on the residents’ Subjective Well-Being such as gender, age, health, marriage, level of education, religion, income, income inequality, unemployment and inflation, housing, and housing property, residents, social mobility, social capital, social security, public expenditure, environmental pollution and urbanization. The fourth chapter uses the data of CGSS (2003-2010)survey, analyze the overall situation and trend of China’s elderly residents’ well-being. In addition, it analyzes elderly residents’ well-being change trend of groups. The fifth chapter is the empirical analysis influencing factors of our country’s elderly residents’ happiness. This part uses the CGSS (2010) data to examine the demographic variable affecting older residents well-being, economic factors and social factors affecting elderly residents of happiness through the related analysis, ordered Logit regression and generalized ordered Logit regression and multivariate statistical regression method. The sixth chapter is conclusion and prospect, it reviews the main content of this part, summarizes the factors influencing the happiness of elderly residents, and gives out the suggestion of building a harmonious society for the government. Finally the thesis points out the existing problems, the shortcomings of this study and the future research direction.The significance of this thesis mainly has two aspects, the theoretical significance and practical significance.Firstly, this study has certain theory value for enriching the active aging theory and happiness economics theory. To be specific, first it enriches the theory of active aging, active aging theory requests that the happiness of old people can’t just stay on the old to be raised, but the pursuit of quality of life and self-fulfillment. So what factors can affect the well-being of the elderly and how to increase the happiness of old people gradually gets the attention of scholars. Second it enriches the theory of happiness economics. Most domestic happiness economics studies take the study of the happiness of the entire population as the research object, but few are focused on the study of elderly residents’ happiness alone, especially from the perspective of economics. This study helps to make up for the deficiency of the current happiness economics theory on the Subjective Well-Being of the elderly, enrich the existing achievements in the study of happiness economics of the old in our country and improve the study system.Secondly, this study has great practical significance. On one hand, the development of this research is helpful to improve the social understanding of the factors influencing the elderly Subjective Well-Being, and then focus on the key factors affecting the elderly Subjective Well-Being, and promote the elderly health and spirits, improve the quality of life. On the other hand, find the influencing factors of the elderly happiness, positive influence and development of labor resources in the elderly, not only can make the elderly old be raised and teaching, improve their independent ability, but also to a great extent, alleviate the pension caused by aging population, medical treatment, such as the burden of the family and society, so it is a "win-win" strategy, to our country social economy sustainable development has very important practical significance.The main innovation of this study is mainly manifested in the following three points:First, the research adopts CGSS (2010) data to analyze the factors affecting Subjective Well-Being of the elderly, CGSS involves all in China’s economic and social aspects. The author combines macro data with micro data, thus guarantee the reliability of the results of the study and the comprehensive research content. Second, the Subjective Well-Being involves in the elderly residents in this study is based on economic factors and social factors on the basis of research, therefore, this study uses the factor analysis and structural equation in economics such as multiple factor analysis method, these ensure the accurate results. Third. it is the first time to study the influences of social mobility on the Subjective Well-Being of the elderly. The existing theory of social mobility has drawn some attention in the theoretical field but limited to the research field of vision and data acquisition, there are still no detailed empirical research on whether or not the social mobility really affects Chinese residents on the existing social and economic status or the mechanisms of influence. Through introducing the social mobility to the factors that affect Subjective Well-Being of the elderly, the paper shows that social mobility can significantly increase the happiness. |
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