The Aged People’s Psychological Capital And Subjective Well-being

The goal of economic development is to provide better social welfare and to promote the national happiness index.With the rapid development of economy,a rise in life expectancy of Chinese is obvious and China’s population is aging fast.Facing the increasing aged population,how to increase the life qualities of the aged people,to lift their happiness index and to realize social healthy aging should be paid attention to.The subject of this study is the subjective well-being of the aged people.On the basis of combing related literature at home and abroad,the object of this study is Chinese 60 years old and above.Using the data of 2008 the Chinese General Social Survey and establishing the multiple linear regressions model,this study is going to analysis the relationship between the aged psychological capital and their subjective well-being.The results show that:First,the Chinese aged people’s subject well-being are in an upper level,it means that because of the development of economy and the improvements of medical conditions,the aged people have a good health both in physically and psychologically.Second,self-evaluation of health condition has more influence to the aged people’s subjective well-being than age.Based on the life cycle theory,the self-evaluation of health conditions of the aged people can be used as an important predictor of subjective well-being,but the influence of age variable is not significant.Third,as an important indicator of social status,the family economic income has a significant role in the aged people’s subjective well-being.Based on the status differentiation theory,the increase of family economic income can lift the aged people’s subjective well-being.Fourth,based on the social integration theory,marriage quality and whether their spouses died have significant effects on the aged people’s subjective well-being.Compared to the aged people who have a partner,those widowed elderly subjective well-being are significantly lower.Fifth,the psychological capital of the aged people can be an important predictor variable to judge their subjective well-being,however different dimensions of the psychological capital have a different impact on their subjective well-being.Specifically,it is the most important for the aged people to recover quickly and to overcome the difficulties depending on their patient(toughness)when they are facing the life difficulties or experience stressful events.Only when they keep toughness,their subjectivewell-being won’t be decreased.In addition,optimism is beneficial to the aged people’s physical and mental health.Thus it can be shown that the psychological capital plays an important role in predicting the aged people’s subjective well-being in China.