Who Are the Beneficiaries of China's New Rural Pension Scheme? Sons, Daughters, or Parents?

The impact of pension insurance types on the health of older adults in China: a study based on the 2018 CHARLS data

Introduction

Pension insurance is an essential safeguard for the quality of life and health of older adults because it provides a stable and dependable source of income after retirement. China has constructed a multi-level social security system to accommodate the diverse needs of older adults, and offers various levels of pension insurance to maximize their interests.

Methods

This study uses propensity score matching and ordinary least squares techniques to analyze 7,359 data from the 2018 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) in order to explore the relationship between different pension insurance categories and the health of older individuals.

Results

The research findings reveal that advanced insurances greatly benefit the health of older adults more than basic pension insurances, and the findings pass the robustness test. In addition, the effect was found to be heterogeneous, depending on the location of retirement and the marital status of older adults.Our findings suggest that both material and non-material consumption may be potential mechanisms by which pension insurance affects the health of older adults, providing new evidence for the causal mechanism between pension insurance and the health of older adults.

Discussion

This study expands the scope of research on the health effects of pension insurance by covering a large representative sample across the country. The results show the important impact of the level of pension insurance on the health of older adults and can contribute to the development of social policies to promote the physical and mental health of older adults.

Gender differential impact of bereavement on health outcomes: evidence from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, 2011-2015

BACKGROUND

Bereavement is the experience of an individual following the death of a person of significance to the individual, most often referring to the spouse. Increased morbidity, health care utilization, and mortality are known to be associated with bereavement. Given China's growing population of older adults, there is a critical need to assess the health consequences of bereavement.

METHOD

We use data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study to examine the impact of bereavement on mental health and quality of life among a sample of mid- and older-aged adults. We use propensity score matching to construct a matching sample and difference-in-differences method to estimate the impact of bereavement on mental health and self-assessed health.

RESULTS

We find bereavement is associated with increased depression symptoms among women (1.542 point or 0.229 standard deviations of Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CES-D) 10 score) but not consistently for men over time. No statistically significant effect of bereavement on self-assessed health is found.

CONCLUSIONS

Our results show a harmful impact of bereavement on mental health among older women in China and point to the need for a comprehensive policy on survivor benefits in China, particularly for rural older women.