志愿服务、年龄差异与主观幸福感

Voluntary Service,Age Difference and Subjective Well-Being

文章以中老年人参与志愿服务为例,基于2013-2015年中国健康与养老追踪调查数据,采用有序Logit、OLS、PSM-DID等方法,尝试解答助人会让人变得更幸福以及助人会对不同年龄群体幸福感产生差异吗等问题。研究结果表明:第一,中老年人参与志愿服务有助于提升幸福感水平,且在考虑到内生性问题情况下,该结论仍成立;第二,进行分样本讨论发现,这种影响存在年龄差异。具体而言,老年人参与志愿服务对幸福感有显著提升作用,但对中年人影响并不显著;第三,经济因素并不对志愿服务与幸福感之间的关系起调节作用;第四,通过中介效应检验发现,中老年人参与志愿服务通过提升积极情绪实现,而消极情绪则起遮掩效应。文章的研究意义在于,理论上,梳理了国内外关于中老年人志愿者服务对幸福感影响的文献,丰富了当前我国中老年人志愿服务参与和幸福感关系的理论和经验研究;实践上,为推进我国中老年人志愿服务参与、保障幸福老年生活及构建互助的社会网络支持体系提供了一定的建议与启示。

Taking the participation of the elderly in voluntary service as an example,based on the data of China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study(CHARLS)in 2013 and 2015,this paper attempts to answer the questions such as whether helping people will make people happier and whether helping others will affect the happiness of different age group by using Ordered Logit,OLS and PSM-DID.The results show that:Firstly,the participation of middle-aged and old people in voluntary service can improve the level of well-being,and the conclusion is still valid considering the endogenous problems.Secondly,it was found that the promotion effect of happiness varies with age.To be specific,the participation of the elderly in voluntary service had a significant effect on happiness,but not on the middle-aged.Thirdly,it is found that economic conditions have no significant moderating effect on the relationship between voluntary services and their happiness.Fourthly,the mediating effect test found that the participation of middle-aged and old people in voluntary services can improve their happiness by promoting positive emotions,but it should be noted that voluntary services may also have a suppressing effect on happiness through negative emotions.The significance of this paper is as follows.Theoretically,it sorts the domestic and foreign literatures about the influence of the middle-age and the elderly voluntary service on happiness,enriching the current research on the theory and experience of the relationship voluntary service participation and happiness between the middle-age and the elderly in China.Practically,in order to promote voluntary service participation of the middle-age and elderly,guarantee the happy elderly life and develop mutual social network support system,it provides some suggestions and enlightenment.