Analysis On The Effect Of Educational Assortative Matching On The Older Adults’ Health And Its Mechanism

With the popularization of medical technology and the development of public health,the population mortality rate has decreased rapidly and the average life expectancy has increased.The extension of human life expectancy is accompanied by the change of reproductive behavior,which promotes the transformation of population growth mode,resulting in the intensification of population aging.At present,aging has become an irreversible development trend in China,and is ahead of the modernization process.The phenomenon of "aging before wealthy" is becoming increasingly prominent.However,China has the problems of incomplete coverage of old-age security and unequal distribution of medical resources,which highlights the inequality of elderly health.The impact of marriage on social inequality has always been concerned by social stratification researchers.In order to understand the health stratification of the elderly in China,starting from the "root theory of social factors",this study deeply analyzes the impact of marriage education matching model on the old adults’ health and mortality,and its mechanism.Based on the root theory of social factors,the theory of "resource substitution" and "resource strengthening",and the resource transfer effect of spouses between the macro paradigm and micro paradigm,this paper determines the theoretical analysis framework;Based on CLHLS data,this paper analyzes the health status of the elderly in different educational assortative matching types,the differences in health and mortality in different educational assortative matching types,and the causes of health differences in different educational assortative matching types.In addition,based on the life course theory,this paper also explores the cohort trend difference of the impact of educational assortative matching on health,and maximizes the use of longitudinal data to explore the macro environmental factors of health differences caused by educational assortative matching.The main research conclusions and viewpoints are as follows:First,the educational health return of the married elderly in China comes more from their own education level.The impact of the same educational assortative matching type on the male and female elderly is all different.In educational heterogeneous marriage,the male older adults’ health status and survival opportunities in hypergamy are significantly better.The education of wives in hypogamy families has a certain "spillover effect".Male elderly people can enjoy the resource advantages,health return and care support from highly educated wives,so the objective health indicators are significantly better than those in illiterate homogeneous marriage.However,husbands with low education level in hypogamy will inhibit the health of female elderly people,but the mortality of female elderly people in hypogamy is lower,and the relatively low education level of husbands does not "inhibit" the survival opportunities of female elderly people..In other words,the female elderly in hypogamy may have the problem of longevity but unhealthy.Second,from the perspective of homogamy,the illiterate male elderly in homogamy suffer from the "double disadvantages" of low health return of self-education and the accumulation of marital disadvantages.The self-care ability of female elderly people in illiterate homogeneous marriage is significantly better than that of female elderly people in hypergamy,hypogamy and non-illiterate homogeneous marriage.The protective effect brought by the low conflict of homogeneous marriage family can offset the disadvantage of resources,so as to provide "compensation" for the health of female elderly people in illiterate homogeneous marriage.The educational homogamy type of "combination of advantages" has the greatest protective effect on men’s subjective health.When further studying the cross matching level within the educational assortative types,with the increase of the cross matching level within heterogeneous marriage,the original marriage matching effect presents a "step effect" in different cross level marriage.The positive influence of hypergamy on the self-care ability of daily life of male elderly expands with the increase of cross grade.The negative effect of hypergamy on the frailty index of male elderly expands with the increase of cross grade.However,there is a "threshold effect" on the impact of hypogamy on the female elderly.If the wife has a greater cross-layer level in hypergamy,it may improve her bargaining right advantage within the family and enjoy the healthy return of resources,so as to reduce the risk of health loss and death.The above research shows that under China’s traditional role expectation and the right to negotiate within the family,the husband enjoys more marital rights,weakening the healthy return of his wife’s own education.Third,the quality of life has a positive impact on the health of the elderly,but there are differences in the regulatory effect of different educational assortative matching type on the health of the elderly.There are differences in the level of quality of life in different marriage matching models.Among them,the male and female elderly who in hypogamy have better self-rated quality of life and higher level of medical security;The male and female elderly in illiterate homogamy have worse self-rated quality of life and lower level of medical security.The improvement of quality of life makes the health differences between different marriage patterns of male elderly show "convergence effect".However,among the female elderly,it weakens the health advantages of the illiterate homogeneous marriage elderly and enhances the protection of other marriage patterns,thus widening the health gap of the female elderly in different marriage patterns.The regulatory effects of self-rated quality of life,positive emotions and housework on the relationship between marriage education matching and elderly health show a "cumulative effect".With the improvement of the above indicators,the positive effects of all kinds of marriage education matching on the health of the elderly are increasing.Among them,survival behavior widens the health gap between illiterate homogamy and other marriage education matching models.In terms of measures to promote health equality among the elderly,the diet,exercise and risky behaviors(smoking and drinking)of the elderly deserve attention,and more attention should be paid to the health knowledge education of the elderly and life diet and nutrition.Fourth,this paper uses the theory of matching the change of marriage process and the effect of different education models on the health of the elderly,and applies the theory of matching the change of marriage process and its effect on the health of the elderly.In the objective health indicators of the elderly,with the young birth cohort,the impact of the objective health indicators of the elderly shows a downward trend.The elderly in the recent cohort experienced more negative events in childhood,which had a negative impact on their early health.This negative impact experienced the accumulation of life course and affected their health in the elderly.In the same birth cohort,there are significant differences in the health status of the elderly in different marriage patterns,and this difference will change due to different cohorts.In the marital state,the health of the elderly is "double affected" by the role of marital protection and the overflow of spouse education,so there are differences in the health status of the elderly in the same cohort,but the health differences brought by the matching mode of marital education in the same cohort are mainly reflected in the male elderly group.From the trend change among cohorts,the health gap between illiterate homogamy and other marriage patterns presents a "dispersion effect" in the young cohort,that is,the health disadvantage of male and female elderly illiterate homogamy is further expanded in the young cohort.