Current Situation And Influential Factors Of Adolescent Welfare Responsibility Attitudes

Within the background of rapid social change in Chinese demographical and familial structure and Chinese welfare transformation towards moderate universal welfare institution, in order to analyze current situation and influential factors of Chinese adolescent welfare responsibility attitudes, this research comes up with two main research questions and uses empirical materials to respond to these questions:First, what are the current situations and situational differences of adolescent individual-family welfare responsibility attitudes and government welfare responsibility attitudes? Second, at specific welfare level, what are the respective influential factors of adolescent individual-family welfare responsibility attitudes and government welfare responsibility attitudes? In a whole, what are the influential factors and their influential extent towards adolescent individual-family and government welfare responsibility attitudes? Welfare responsibility attitudes are important references of national social welfare institutional arrangements. Also, within the background of very limited current research of Chinese welfare responsibility attitudes, this research has important theoretical, practical and policy significance, as it analyzes welfare responsibility attitudes in consideration of welfare delivery dimensions and welfare institutional levels.This research puts forward a "two-dimension&two-level" welfare responsibility attitudes analytical framework that operationalizes welfare responsibility attitudes into individual-family dimension and government dimension, each of which is respectively analyzed by specific level of welfare responsibility attitudes (minimum standard of living welfare, employment welfare, child welfare, elderly welfare and education welfare) and combined level of welfare responsibility attitudes that are synthetized through corresponding scales by Factor Analysis. Using quantitative method and multi-stage stratified cluster sampling, this research investigates adolescent age group from four Chinese cities (Nanjing, Tianjin, Lanzhou and Chengdu). At specific level, this research describes and compares current situations of adolescent individual-family welfare responsibility attitudes and government welfare responsibility attitudes. Also, this research analyzes the potential influence of individual factors (age, gender, health condition and sense of well-being), family factors (parents’years of education, parents’employment situation, family economic situation, family living condition and family social status), institutional factors (welfare attainment and household type) and geographical factor (belonged city) towards each specific level of adolescent welfare responsibility attitudes from both the individual-family and government dimensions. Further, at combined level, based on self-interest argument, family-orientated Chinese welfare culture argument and current institutional and geographical arrangements of Chinese social welfare system, the research examines the influence and influential direction of the above-mentioned individual, family, institutional and geographical factors towards adolescent welfare responsibility combined attitudes from both the individual-family and government dimensions.This research finds that adolescent welfare responsibility attitudes show an institutional structure sequence distinction and a "relative center-periphery" subject structure. On one hand, the institutional structure sequence distinction is reflected by different agreement degree sequence between individual-family and government dimensions:in the dimension of individual-family welfare responsibility attitudes, agreement degree on individual-family welfare responsibility from high to low is elderly welfare, education welfare, child welfare, minimum standard of living welfare and employment welfare; however, in the dimension of government welfare responsibility attitudes, agreement degree on government welfare responsibility from high to low is minimum standard of living welfare, employment welfare, elderly welfare, child welfare, and with a high agreement on expanding education welfare (education welfare duration years). On the other hand, the "relative center-periphery" subject structure is reflected by higher agreement degree in individual-family welfare responsibilities than that of government welfare responsibilities at each specific welfare levels.Also, at each above-mentioned specific welfare level, the individual-family welfare responsibility attitudes and the government welfare responsibility attitudes are influenced by individual, family, institutional and geographical factors; however, the influential factors of individual-family welfare responsibility attitudes and the government welfare responsibility attitudes are different among specific welfare levels. Meanwhile, at combined level, the individual-family welfare responsibility combined attitudes and the government welfare responsibility combined attitudes are influenced by individual, family and geographical factors but not influenced by institutional factors; the statistical result merely supports welfare responsibility attitudes difference resulted from city geographical distinction, while does not support for welfare responsibility attitudes difference resulted from urban-rural distinction. In addition, at combined level, regression model results in this research only partially support the self-interest argument of welfare attitudes. On one hand, the positive influence of health condition and sense of well-being towards individual-family welfare responsibility combined attitudes, and the negative influence of parents’employment situation and father’s years of education towards government welfare responsibility combined attitudes, support the self-interest argument. On the other hand, the negative influence of family economic situation towards individual-family welfare responsibility combined attitudes, and the positive influence of mother’s years of education and family social status towards government welfare responsibility combined attitudes, are inconsistent with self-interest argument.Based on "two-dimension&two-level" analysis of current situation and influential factors of adolescent welfare responsibility attitudes, this research provides a combined welfare conception in integration of individual, family and government welfare responsibilities. Specifically, this conception has features as follows:On one hand, regarding individual and family as main welfare responsibility undertakers, expanding government welfare responsibility, and targeting current welfare institutional construction goal as supporting individuals and families to better carry out their welfare responsibilities. On the other hand, emphasizing individual and family welfare responsibilities in child welfare, elderly welfare and minimum standard of living welfare, while stressing governmental welfare responsibilities in minimum standard of living welfare, employment welfare and education welfare. Nevertheless, constrained by data and researcher’s ability, this research has several limitations on establishment of analysis dimensions and levels, index operationalization and interpretation quality of analysis results. Further research should be taken to explore intergroup comparison of welfare responsibility attitudes, comparison between welfare responsibility attitudes and welfare right attitudes, and deeper integrated welfare boundary analysis in combination of varied factors.