| Along with the age structure of the population shows the trend of aging,the health problems of the elderly coms,including physical health and mental health.With the increase of age,the elderly's body function and action ability decline,and because of the pressure of work and life,children can't always accompany with parents.These may make the elderly feel lonely and result in a series of mental health problems.According to the World Health Organization,more than 20% of the elderly suffer from mental disorders,the most common of which is depression.Although depressive sympoms can not be equated with depression,there is an intrinsic link between them.Depressive symptoms are part of the symptoms of depression in terms of psychological emotion,physical function and cognitive function,and they will develop into depression over if they persista for a long time.Depressive symptoms have important effects on the physical function and cognition of the elderly,and even lead to self-injury and suicide.Intergenerational support is an important guarantee to maintain the quality of life of the elderly.The interaction with children can affect the mental health of the elderly.Intergenerational support of families is a two-way street,including the bottom-up support from children to their parents in economic,caring and emotional support and the top-down support from parents to their children in these three aspects.From the perspective of bi-generational intergenerational support,this paper foucs focuses on the topic of the influence of intergenerational support on depressive symptoms of the elderly and uses the China Health and Pension Tracking Survey(CHARLS)2015 data to study whether intergenerational support can affect depressive symptoms of the elderly and what the affect is.According to the content and flow of support,intergenerational family support is divided into emotional support(including face-to-face contact and continuous communication),parents access and give Economic support and care support.The depressive symptoms of the elderly were assessed using the Short-Term Flow Center Depression Scale(short version of CES-D).According to the scoring criteria set by Andresen et al,10 points were used as the threshold for whether the elderly have depressive symptoms.Based on Social Exchange Theory,Health Demand Theory,Social Causality Theory and Health Choice Theory,combined with relevant literature,this paper proposes the research hypothesis that family intergenerational support has a significant impact on depressive symptoms in the elderly.There may be endogeneity between family intergenerational support and whether the elderly suffer from depressive symptoms.Therefore,the Probit simultaneous equations model is used to the discrete endogenous explanatory variables,and the Instrumental variable Probit(IV Probit)is used to continuous endogenous explanatory variables.This paper concludes by descriptive analysis that the proportion of elderly people with depressive symptoms is 39.92%,and many elderly people are affected by depressive symptoms.Through empirical analysis,the following main conclusions are drawn:(1)whether parents receive,provide financial support and the level of receiving and providing financial support all have a significant negative impact on the existence of depressive symptoms in the elderly.(2)Parents receive and provide care support have a significant negative impact on whether the elderly have depressive symptoms.(3)The frequency of meeting and communication contact between generations has a significant negative impact on the depressive symptoms in the elderly.This paper puts forward the following suggestions:(1)Strengthen the propaganda of the traditional “filial piety” culture and raise the level of children's support.(2)Grassroots organizations should regularly carry out screening for depressive symptoms.(3)Pay attention to the spiritual needs of the elderly.(4)Develop community home care services vigorously. |
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