Study On Life Satisfaction And Its Influencing Factors Of Empty - Nest Middle - Aged People

With the rapid development of the urbanization process、shrinking family size and high speed population floating. More and more families occur, among which, are families whose parents younger than 50 years old or say at their middle ages, while their kids have left the families. Researchers refer to such families as “new Empty-Nest families” or “middle-aged families”. In the social discussion of the negative influences of empty-nest phenomenon on senior citizens, the mental health of the middle-aged citizens of “new empty-nest families” should not be left out of discussion. In the current researches of “Empty-Nest” families, most of the research objects are senior citizens; few have focused on middle-aged citizens in “empty-nest” families. Among these few researches, they mostly take the aspect of sociology, and main emphasis lies in the family life and emotion states. Whether middle-aged citizens of empty-nest families are satisfied with their current life, what factors will have influence on their life satisfaction are the questions that need further exploration.Based on the analysis above, this paper uses Life Satisfaction Index Scale A, Social Support Rating Scale and Simplified Coping Style Questionnaires to investigate 635 middle-aged citizens from Xuanwei(350 of them are from empty-nest families while others are not). With the help of the questionnaires and investigation, this paper tries to have further understanding on the life satisfaction of middle-aged citizens of Empty-Nest families, and explores the factors that have an impact on their life satisfaction, so that to form certain references for the improvement of middle-aged citizens of empty-nest families in Xuanwei.The main conclusions are as follows:(1)The satisfaction level towards life of middle-aged citizens of empty-nest families in Xuanwei shows approximate normal distribution trend and falls into the middle level on the whole.(2)The life satisfaction level of middle-aged citizens of empty-nest families in Xuanwei have significant differences in the following areas: place of living, marriage state, occupation, average monthly income, frequency of entertainment, self-estimation on health state, achievement of kids, frequency of communication with kids and emotional changes towards kids. The following factors have no significant difference: gender, duration of kids’ absence, frequency of kids returning to home.(3)The life satisfaction level of middle-aged citizens of empty-nest families is significantly lower than that of non-empty-nest families. There are significant differences in places of living, marriage state, occupation, average monthly income, but insignificant differences in gender.(4)The life satisfaction level of middle-aged citizens of empty-nest families is positively related to subjective supports, objective supports and the utilization of supports. Utilization of support and subjective support have positive predictive effects on the satisfaction level of middle-aged citizens.(5)The life satisfaction level of middle-aged citizens of empty-nest families is positively related to the positive coping actions, negatively related to negative coping actions. Positive coping actions have positive predictive effects on the satisfaction level of middle-aged citizens, while negative coping actions have negative predictive effects.