A Study On The Willingness And Influencing Factors Of Elderly People Living Alone To Participate In Mutual Support For The Aged

“Support for the aged” is people’s aspiration for a better life in old age.With the development of the times and scientific and technological advances,the life expectancy of the elderly is gradually increasing and the aging of the Chinese population is deepening year by year.As a special group in society,elderly people living alone are not accompanied by their children and spouses and face the absence of family bodies for the elderly and insufficient social support for the elderly.There is an urgent need for mutual pensions,as they stimulate the vitality of the elderly living alone and facilitate the transition to retirement.The promotion of an orderly and effective development of mutual pensions must be based on a greater willingness to participate on the part of elderly people living alone and on a real integration of mutual pensions in the solution of the difficult problem of pensions for elderly people living alone.This paper is based on the theory of social exchange,the theory of the social ecosystem and the theory of the pluralism of welfare.The data from CLASS2018 were used to construct a binary logistic model and an explanatory structural model to empirically analyze the factors that influence the willingness to participate in the mutual pension of elderly people living alone and the hierarchical structure between these factors.Results of the study: the transformation of internal ideas and the improvement of external policies will improve the participation of elderly people living alone in the mutual pension;older people living alone,with sufficient personal resources and more family resources,prefer to participate in mutual retirement;older people who live alone and wish to continue contributing to society and who occupy a leadership position before retirement prefer to participate in mutual retirement;the willingness to participate in mutual pensions for elderly people living alone shows great variation between towns and countryside and between regions.Among the factors that significantly influence the willingness of elderly people living alone to participate in mutual retirement:intergenerational support of children for elderly people living alone,etc.,is an indirect factor of average level;The age,cultural level,etc.,of elderly people living alone are direct surface factors.Based on the above empirical findings,we suggest measures to improve the willingness of older people living alone to participate,such as improving government institutional policies,improving the level of community services,involving social forces,encouraging intergenerational family support and transforming the concept of older people living alone.This paper focuses on the elderly living alone special groups,based on the theoretical analysis of the willingness of elderly living alone to participate in mutual support pension based on the social exchange theory,the empirical test is carried out,which has certain significance for enriching the study of the willingness of elderly living alone to participate in mutual support pension,and has certain value for improving the mutual support pension service and improving the willingness of elderly living alone to participate in mutual support pension.