社会保障、自我保障与居民生活质量——基于居民消费视角的实证

Social Security, Self-safeguard and Quality of Residents' Life——An empirical study based on residents' consumption

我国经济结构正处于转型的关键期,也是社会矛盾的多发期,完善的保障制度是化解社会矛盾、稳定社会秩序的重要保证。为此必须建立多层次多样性的保障体系,这是提高居民生活质量、保障民生的必然选择。文章从理论上梳理了社会保障、自我保障、资产跨期配置"三轮驱动"影响居民生活质量的逻辑机理,认为从经济层面看,居民的生活质量是与居民幸福相关的一个概念,而幸福与效用满足程度有关,居民消费是满足消费者效用的主要路径。这一逻辑的理论归纳为本文的实证研究奠定了基础,在这一理论支撑下,运用2000-2014年省级城镇居民面板数据,沿着从被动性保障到主动性保障的主线,以社会保障、自我保障、跨期资产配置为核心解释变量进行了实证研究。研究发现:社会保障与自我保障对我国城镇居民生活质量影响几乎相当,但存在明显的区域差异,东部地区居民生活质量受自我保障影响较大,而中西部地区居民则对社会保障依赖较大;跨期资产配置保障并未帮助城镇居民提高生活质量,这可能跟"低收入者"是当前我国消费贷款主力军有关;居民主动性收入高低、生活习惯是通过消费进而影响生活质量的重要因素,但较高教育水平却并未给居民带来高品质的生活,而且越是经济发达地区这一现象越明显。根据这些研究结论,提出的政策建议为:我国现阶段要全面覆盖社会保障的"兜底"功能以保障人民的基本生存权;鼓励居民多渠道筹措资金,积极提升自我保障能力,从而提升生活质量;要合理适度的发展消费信贷,通过资产跨期配置平滑生命周期内生活质量的时间差异;完善收入分配机制与制度,形成全社会尊重劳动,激励居民通过各种智力与非智力劳动来创造幸福,从而提升生活质量。

China＇s economic structure is in a critical period of transition, in which the social contradictions will become more than ever. The perfect security system is an important guarantee for resolving social contradictions and beneficial to the stability of social order. Therefore, this paper suggests establishing a multi-level and diversifying security system to improve the quality of life of residents and it will become an inevitable choice to protect people＇s livelihood. The paper analyzes the logical mechanism of ＂three-wheel drive＂ affecting the quality of life of residents, and points out that the quality of residents＇ life is a concept related to the happiness of them, and happiness is the result of satisfaction degree. Consumers＇ spending is the main path to meet the utility of the consumer. Under the support of this theory, based on the data of the provincial urban residents from 2000 to 2014 and following the main line from passive guarantee to active guarantee, the paper takes the social security, self-security, and asset inter-temporal allocation as the core to explain the variables for empirical research. It is found that social security and self security have almost the same effect on the quality of life of urban residents in China, but there are obvious regional differences. The quality of life of residents in eastern China is greatly influenced by self-security, while residents in central and western regions depend on social security. The provision of inter-temporal asset allocation does not help the urban residents to improve the quality of life, and the possible reason may be the ＂low income＂ consumer is the main force of loans in China. Residents＇ active income level and living habits are the important factors affecting the quality of life, but the higher education level did not give residents a high quality of life, and in the areas more economically developed, this phenomenon is more obvious. According to these conclusions, the policy recommendations are given as follows. China should fully cover the functions of social security to protect the basic rights of the people at the current stage. Residents should be encouraged to raise funds in various channels and actively enhance the self-protection capacity to enhance the quality of life. Moderate consumer credit should be developed. Through the asset allocation, the time difference of distribution of life within the life cycle of the whole life should be smoothed. The income distribution mechanism and system should be improved. It also suggests that the whole society respect labor, residents are encouraged to create happiness through a variety of intellectual and non-intellectual work and finally improve the life quality.