中国子女教育对老年父母健康的异质性影响研究

Research on the Heterogeneous Effects of Children’s Education on the Health of Elderly Parents in China

文章依据拓展的Grossman模型和社会网络理论,结合中国家庭的代际联系特点,构建以子女收入、面对面和非面对面联系为中介的分析框架,使用中国健康与养老追踪调查数据实证检验中国子女教育影响父母健康的异质性特征。结果发现:(1)子女教育对老年父母综合健康有显著的正向影响,以子女收入衡量的预算约束机制与以面对面和非面对面联系衡量的非经济联系机制分别能够解释其中的34.3%和11.3%。(2)分城乡看,子女教育对城镇父母健康的正向影响较大,且完全通过子女收入间接产生;子女教育对农村父母健康的正向影响较小,有37.4%的影响通过3种中介变量间接产生。(3)分健康维度看,子女教育对城乡父母躯体健康和社会适应的影响主要通过预算约束机制发挥作用,对城镇父母心理健康的影响完全通过子女收入发挥中介作用,对农村父母心理健康的间接影响则相对较小。鉴于以上结论,文章建议塑造父母重视子女教育的良好氛围,出台弱势家庭的子女教育倾斜政策,强化对农村老龄健康事业的扶持力度。

Based on the extended Grossman model and the social network theory, this paper constructs a framework with children’s income, types of intergenerational communication(face-to-face or others) to examine the heterogeneous impacts of children’s education on their parents’ health with the CHARLS data. The results show that:(1) Children’s education has a significantly positive effect on parents’ integrated health, of which 34.3% and 11.3% could be explained by the budget constraint mechanism(measured by children’s income) and non-economic linkage mechanism(measured by face-to-face communication and non-face-to-face contact) respectively.(2) The positive impact is larger for urban parents, operated indirectly through children’s income. The children’s educational impact is smaller for rural parents, and 37.4% of the impact is exhibited indirectly through three mediators.(3) Among different health dimensions, the impacts of children’s education on parents’ physical health and social adaptation are mediated by children’s income. The effect on parent’s mental health is fully mediated by children’s income in urban areas, and partly in rural areas. This paper suggests parents attach importance to their children’s education, local governments introduce preferential policies for children’s education of disadvantaged families, and strengthen the support for elderly health in rural areas.