| The problem of population aging has become an important issue in China's social development.With the deepening of population aging,it has a huge impact on the urban and rural structure,industrial structure,consumption structure,family structure.Besides,it also aggravates the burden of the social pension security system.Therefore,The Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee and the 14th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development and the Long-Range Objectives Through the Year 2035 put forward "implementing the national strategy of actively coping with the aging population".Coping with the problem of aging population will become an important issue in building a socialist modern country in an all-round way.In the process of dealing with the problem of population aging,the rural population aging cannot be ignored,even more attention should be paid.Because one of the basic characteristics of China's population aging is the "inversion pattern of urban-rural ageing",that is,the degree of rural population aging is higher than that of cities and towns,the speed is faster than that of cities and towns,the regional difference is greater than that of cities and towns,and the elderly population is more than that of cities and towns(Lin Bao,2015).This has brought many adverse effects to the rural elderly and their families.The specific performances are as follows:(1)the problem of population hollowing-out in rural areas is aggravated,which makes the"empty nesters" face three major problems:insufficient economic support,reduced living care and lack of spiritual comfort.(2)Let the old people in rural areas be forced to "delay retirement",so that they must do more agricultural work and family work.(3)It weakens the function of land for the aged and affects the income,savings and consumption level of the rural elderly.(4)The impact of rural families filial piety ethics tradition is becoming smaller and smaller.(5)It also increases the probability of the rural elderly falling into economic poverty and multidimensional poverty,etc.In this context,taking the rural elderly and their families as the research object,this paper comprehensively evaluates the impact of the Rural Social Endowment Insurance Policy which is started in 2009 on rural population migration and population structure,family support for the elderly,and thus on the material welfare and subjective welfare of the rural elderly.This study will provide some basis for continuously improving the rural social security system,using a variety of policy combinations to reduce the burden of rural family support of the elderly,and improving the welfare of the rural elderly.Firstly,this paper studies the impact of social endowment insurance policy on population hollowing out of rural areas.By designing and constructing the most common family pattern of "three generations in one family" in rural areas,and using the micro data of China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study(CHARLS),this paper empirically analyzes the influence of elderly parents' participation in social pension and receiving pension on their children's decision-making of going out to work and their influence on grandparents' care for grandchildren,especially in the families where their children choose to go out to work.The results show that:parents'participation has no significant impact on children's go-out-to-work decision,but if parents receive pension,the probability of children's go-out-to-work is significantly increased.At the same time,compared with the uninsured and the non-pensioners,the parental insurance and the pension can significantly the probability and time of their grandchildren's rearing.Secondly,this paper examines the impact of social endowment insurance policy on family support for the elderly model and intergenerational support behavior from the dual perspective of support and upbringing.I study the influence of social endowment insurance participants(45-59 years old)on the upward support for their parents;and the influence of pensioners(over 60 years old)on the downward support for their children;besides,I also consider that the pension policy how to affect the welfare of the participants and pensioners under the combined effect of the two influences.Using the data of CHARLS from 2011 to 2015,I find that:from the perspective of children,the "Participation Effect" produced by participating in social endowment insurance will significantly reduce their support to parents,which is mainly due to the impact of children's budget constraints,thus inhibiting the support provided to their parents when children in the payment stage.The "Receiving Effect"of receiving pension will significantly increase their economic support to parents.This is mainly because the relaxation of budget constraints makes them redistribute their pension income.From the perspective of parents,whether they participate or receive behavior,cannot significantly affect their support from children.However,with the increase of parents'pension years,the pension significantly“crowding out"their children's financial support to parents.In addition,this result is also affected by the "family binding" mechanism of social endowment insurance policy.When considering the intergenerational support,social endowment insurance policy significantly affects the subjective welfare of the insured/recipients,improves their life satisfaction and reduces their depression.Thirdly,this paper studies the impact of social endowment insurance policy on rural elderly poverty.(1)Based on Amartya Sen's "capability approach" theory and combined with the human poverty index(HPI)and the characteristics of rural society in China,this paper measures the multi-dimensional poverty of rural elderly in China from four dimensions:quality of life,health,social integration and subjective welfare.Using A-F method to construct Multidimensional Poverty Index(MPI),I use the data of China Family Penal Studies(CFPS)to estimate the poverty of rural elderly,found that:on average,the incidence of poverty of rural elderly who participate in social endowment insurance and receive social endowment insurance is significantly lower than that of the uninsured and non-pensioners except the dimension of quality of life.(2)By constructing a panel data model,I examine the poverty reduction effect of social insurance pension.The results show that compared with non-pensioners,the probability of the multidimensional poverty can be significantly reduced for the pensioners,this effect is significant in all the dimensions of quality of life,health,social integration and subjective welfare.Finally,from the perspective of spiritual consolation,this paper evaluates the effect of social endowment insurance policy on the spiritual comfort problem of rural elderly.I investigate whether the social endowment insurance policy can effectively alleviate the loneliness of the rural elderly through the subjective dimension of self-evaluation of loneliness,the objective dimension of social activity participation and the frequency of children's visit to patents.Our research shows that:the social endowment insurance policy alleviates the subjective loneliness of the rural elderly,improves their probability of participating in social activities and their children's visit frequency.The impact mechanism analysis further shows that the social endowment insurance policy significantly increases the leisure time of the rural elderly,thus the free time promotes the elderly to participate in more social activities.Meanwhile,the pension also increases the probability and amount of private transfer payment of the elderly to their children to promote children's visits.In addition,combined with the research in Chapters 3 and 6,I also examine the relationship between grandparents'care for grandchildren and loneliness of them.It is found that taking care of grandchildren can alleviate the subjective loneliness of the elderly,but it has no significant effect on social activity participation and children's visit frequency.This paper has some policy implications.In dealing with the problem of aging population,adjusting population policy,liberalizing birth restriction and encouraging birth are the fundamental solutions.In order to solve the problem of rural hollowing out of population,alleviate the burden of providing for the aged and improve the welfare of the elderly in rural areas,we should make greater efforts to implement the strategy of Rural Vitalization.We should start from rural infrastructure construction,landscape renovation,rural industrial revolution and other aspects to make rural areas develop,agriculture modern and farmer rich.Only in this way can we completely solve the problems of rural development.At the same time,continuing to develop and improve the rural social security system with pension and medical care as the main body is the most direct,effective and crucial policy to enhance the welfare of the rural elderly. |
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