新农保养老金收益对农村老年人健康行为的影响及其作用机制

Impact of China's New Rural Social Endowment Insurance Program on the Rural Elderly's Health Behavior and Its Mechanism

基于中国家庭追踪调查(CFPS)数据,从烟酒行为视角考察新农保养老金收益对农村老年人健康行为的影响,实证结果显示:领取新农保养老金显著降低了农村老年人近期吸烟的概率,同时,农村老年人每日的吸烟数量亦显著下降;另一方面,新农保养老金收益并未对农村老年人的饮酒行为产生显著影响。影响机制分析表明,领取养老金会通过健康意识的提高、代际支持以及隔代照料的增加等减少农村老年人的不良健康行为。进一步研究显示,健康状况较好的老年人受政策影响更大、更显著,表明新农保的政策影响存在异质性。

With an increasingly aging population,China is about to become a more aged society,and how to achieve"healthy aging"has become a central concern in all sectors of society.It is well known that social insurance plays an important role in the healthy life of the elderly,and existing research has effectively explained and analyzed the impacts of social insurance on the elderly's physical and mental health.Unlike previous research,this paper uses China Family Panel Studies(CFPS)data to verify the impact of China's new rural social endowment insurance subsidies on health behaviors in the rural elderly.Specifically,it examines smoking and alcohol drinking behaviors and their relationship to the backward rural social pension system and the weakening role of home-based care for the aged in rural families.The research is conducive to recognizing the policy effect and mechanism of China's new rural social endowment insurance program on the healthy behaviors of rural elderly people,providing theoretical support for the implementation of the"Healthy China"and"Healthy Aging"strategy in our country and for the scientific implementation of social pension policies in the future.In terms of empirical methodology,we use fuzzy regression discontinuity(Fuzzy RD)to identify the impact of the new rural social endowment insurance and avoid endogenous problems in conclusions.The research set different bandwidths and age trends before and after the age breakpoint to test the robustness of results.The empirical results show that for rural elderly people,the new rural social endowment insurance subsidies have significantly reduced the probability of smoking by about 15% to 38%,and significantly dropped the number of daily smoking by around 3 to 9 cigarettes;while the new rural social endowment insurance subsidies have not significantly affected drinking behaviors at all.Next,we analyze the mechanism and impact of the new rural social endowment insurance subsidies on the health behaviours of the rural elderly in relation to three factors:healthy consumption,family support and intergenerational care.We find that after rural elderly people receive subsidies,healthy consumption,the possibility of obtaining family support and intergenerational care increase while unhealthy behaviors decrease.This suggests that the policy effects of the new rural social endowment insurance are an improvement on pension problems and promoting harmony among rural families.Since the implementation of the new rural social endowment insurance,the subsidies have provided support to alleviate pension problem in rural areas by increasing healthy consumption among rural elderly people,the function of family care has been enhanced,and the possibility of rural elderly people taking care of their grandchildren has been increased.Further research,we found that the limits on policy implementation since the restriction of the new rural social endowment insurance subsidies has a tiny inhibitory effect on personal unhealthy behaviors.The new rural social endowment insurance subsidies have a significant effect on the elderly in good health through heterogeneous analysis.Our results,suggest the following:In relation to family support and intergenerational care,younger generations should be encouraged to pay more attention to the emotional needs of the rural elderly by visiting parents frequently,spending more time to take care of the elderly and communicating with them through various means.In terms of government action,policies should:attach importance to the development of spiritual culture in rural areas;improve the pension mode to build the elderly's confidence in their life in rural areas;further enhance policy intensity and increase the impact sphere of social pension;address inequities in social insurance between rural and urban areas to build an integrated urban-rural social system.