The Impact Of Marital Status On Preferred Living Arrangements Among The Elderly In China

This paper uses “2013 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study"(CHARLS)cross-sectional data to discuss the influence of different factors on the elderly’s living arrangement preferences.The most important factor which we want to focus is the marital status of the elderly.The regression models of LPM/Logit/Multiple Logit are used in this paper.This study finds that marital status has an important influence on the elderly’s preference of living with their children.It shows the difference between urban and rural areas,as well as gender.This paper can display the elderly’s reliance on their children through the different living arrangements when the elderly has different marital status,using multiple logit model.Compared with those who are married and live with their spouses,the elderly who are separated with their spouse and do not love their spouse prefer to live with their children.And the elderly who are widowed also tend to live with their children.These two kinds of elderly’s dependences on their children are larger.Married but not living together(owing to jobs)and divorce are not significant.About the difference of results between rural and urban areas,rural elderly prefers to live closer to their children when they have different marital status;About the differences of results in terms of gender,female elderly tends to live closer with their children than male elderly when they have different marital status.The influences on living arrangement also include the education level.The higher degree the elderly gets,the less willing to live with their children.The elderly who has higher degree can get spiritual compensation of losing their partner,so that the elderly’s percentage of living with their children becomes less.The house area also has some influence on elderly’s living arrangements.Larger the house is,the bigger desire of living with children the elderly has.