| According to the data released by the National Committee on Ageing, China’s people over aged 60 will reach 248 billion, stepping into deeper aging society. Marital status and health of aging people has also been growing concern in academia.Currently, marital status of the elderly shows a high proportion of married, decreased ratio as well as increased number of widowed, and differs in gender, age, region, ethnic and so on. Marital status has significant influence on life pattern, health and other aspects for the elderly. Meanwhile, the health of the elderly improved steadily but the health differentiation phenomenon is increasing seriously, which could be proved by older people are less healthier than younger, men are healthier than women, urban elderly are healthier than rural, people of eastern region are healthier than western region, and married elderly shows better health than the widowed.The paper has reviewed the marital status of the elderly, the definition and measurement of health, related study about older people on physical as well as mental health, summarizing theories of marital affecting health. On the basis of the protective effect theory, marital resource model, marital crisis model and selection effect model, this paper sets up a theoretical analysis framework, that is marriage has a protective effect for the elderly on health, and the health of old people is also affected by three types of control variables:social-economic factors, health behaviors and social support. Based on the above theories, this paper proposed three hypotheses: firstly, marital protection still exists in low and middle aged elderly; secondly, the quality of marriage has a significant impact on the health of the elderly; thirdly, marital protection towards elderly is also affected by socio-economic factors, health behaviors and social support. By adopting Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS) data which was conducted in the year 2008 and resurveyed in 2011, and by using marital status, marital quality and marital changes as a measure of marriage, activity of daily living (ADL) and cognitive function as a measure of health, this paper establishes a binary logistic regression model to verify marital protection towards old people’s health based on the analysis of descriptive statistics.The conclusions of this paper are as follows:Firstly, marital status has a protective effect on the health of the elderly. Protective effect is very significant on the oldest old, while to low and middle aged elderly, the effect exists but not significant. There are differences in the impact of marriage on the health of the elderly, that is the impact of marital status on the physical health is more significant than on the mental health and marital change shows more significance on the mental health.Secondly, the elderly of better marital quality present relatively better cognitive function, however, statistical test is not significant for both younger elderly and the oldest old.Thirdly, in addition to marital status, socio-economic factors, health behaviors and social support also affect the health of the elderly to some extent, especially to those who have higher level of education, economic independence, regular exercise and more communication with family members are relatively healthier.Since marital status affects the health of the elderly, we propose the following recommendations:Firstly, pay attention to marital status and changes of the elderly and create a harmonious social environment. Secondly, improve the laws, regulations and management, so as to protect the legitimate rights and interests of the old people when remarried. Thirdly, pay attention to the marital quality of the elderly and enhance satisfaction in later life. Lastly, emphasize on marital protection towards old people’s health and promote healthy aging actively. |
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