Elderly Welfare Attitudes And Its Influential Factors In China

Based on the background of social welfare institution transformation towards universal institution, the change of population and family structure and cognition of civil rights, divided into specific welfare dimensions (employment welfare, minimum standard of living welfare, child welfare, elderly welfare and education welfare) and overall welfare dimension, and welfare providers (government, individual and family), this paper analyses elderly welfare attitudes and its influential factors. The research subjects are old people and the research questions are:Firstly, what kind of situation do elderly’s government welfare attitudes and individual and family welfare attitudes show? Secondly, in specific welfare dimensions and overall welfare dimension, what factors affect elderly’s government welfare attitudes and individual and family welfare attitudes respectively? As the localization research on welfare attitudes, it is not only conducive to enriching research results on welfare attitudes in mainland China, but also provides provide direction for determining the objective welfare responsibility boundary of welfare providers in the process of welfare institution transformation.On the basis of literature review, divided into specific welfare dimensions and overall welfare dimension, this paper proposes four hypotheses about elderly welfare attitudes s towards government, individual and family undertaking welfare responsibility and its influential factors. The paper analyzes how individual factors (age, gender, health recognition, well-being, perception of welfare rights, perception of welfare need), family factors (education years of elderly themselves and their spouses, family economic status, family social status), institutional factors (welfare receipt status, household type), regional factors (belonged city) influence elderly welfare attitudesin different welfare dimensions by description statistics analysis, factor analysis, binary logistic regression model and multiple regression model method.The research finds that firstly, in specific welfare dimensions, agreement degree on elderly welfare attitudes towards government undertaking welfare responsibility from high to low is minimum standard of living welfare, employment welfare, elderly welfare, child welfare, and elderly also agree that government should extend compulsory education time. However, agreement degree on elderly welfare attitudes towards individual and family undertaking welfare responsibility from high to low is elderly welfare, employment welfare, minimum standard of living welfare, child welfare. Secondly, in every specific welfare dimension, elderly welfare attitudes towards government, individual and family undertaking welfare responsibility show significant differences and elderly have more positive attitudes towards individual and family undertaking responsibility for employment welfare, minimum standard of living welfare, child welfare, elderly welfare and education welfare, which reflects the individual and family centered characteristic of elderly welfare attitudes. Thirdly, in the overall welfare dimension, elderly age, health recognition, perception of welfare rights, family social status and welfare receipt status significantly influencing attitudes towards government undertaking welfare responsibility and well-being and welfare receipt status influencing attitudes towards individual and family undertaking welfare responsibility are consistent with self-interest argument, which in a certain extent reflects the self-interest characteristic of elderly welfare attitudes. Fourthly, compared with elderly in cities with backward economic development, elderly in ones with higher level economic development show more recognition to individual and family undertaking welfare responsibility and have less positive attitudes towards government undertaking welfare responsibility. In specific welfare dimensions, except the child welfare dimension of government welfare attitudes, elderly welfare and education welfare dimensions of individual and family welfare attitudes, regional factors significantly affect attitudes towards government, individual and family undertaking welfare responsibility in the rest of specific welfare dimensions. This reflects the regional differences characteristic of elderly welfare attitudes and there is uneven situation in regional welfare resources allocation.Based on the above research results, this paper puts forward the idea of establishment of combined undertaking welfare responsibility model. On the one hand, it needs to ensure the normal welfare function operation ofindividual and family in bringing up their children, taking care of the elderly. At the other hand, the government should gradually and moderately expand the breadth and depth of its welfare responsibility, and enhance its welfare supply capacity in employment welfare, minimum standard of living welfare and education welfare to maintain the basic living standards in the case of the failure of market, family’s welfare function. The construction of combined undertaking welfare responsibility model should consider different groups, phases and regions and gradually realize the transformation towards mix of universal welfare institution. However, limited by researcher’s ability and database, this paper has some limitations in the selection of welfare providers, the operationalization of welfare attitudes dimensions, and the universality of the research results. At the same time, this paper also needs to do comparative studies across regions, culture and groups, and research the analysis dimensions of welfare attitudes indigenization in the future.