互联网使用对老年人社区参与的影响研究——“隔离”还是“融入”

Segregation or Integration:A Study of the Impact of Internet Use on Community Participation of Chinese Elderly

互联网对老年生活的融入无疑会影响老年人的社区参与程度,社区参与是老年人社会参与的重要路径,是满足老年人精神需求、增强老年人归属感、实现老年人自我价值的重要途径,分析互联网使用对老年人社区参与的影响具有重要意义。基于中国老年社会追踪调查(CLASS)2018年微观数据,从老年人社区参与的动机出发,分析互联网使用对老年人公益性和私利性社区参与的影响,并对其异质性和潜在影响机制进行探讨。互联网使用会显著降低老年人公益性和私利性社区参与的概率,工具变量模型显示结果稳健。当老年人跨越社区参与的“栅栏”时,使用互联网会降低老年人公益性社区参与强度,提高其私利性社区参与的强度。互联网使用对老年人社区参与的影响因社区类型有所不同。互联网使用可能会通过提高老年人社会支持水平和社会适应能力而影响其社区参与水平。基于此,在国家大力发展智慧养老的背景下,要通过互联网促进老年人私利性社区参与,利用互联网提高老年人的社区归属感和志愿服务意识;还要促进老年人公益性社区参与,从而实现老年人有作为、有进步、有快乐的重要人生阶段目标。

Community participation is an important pathway for older people’s social participation.Using microdata from the China Longitudinal Aging Social Survey(CLASS)2018,this paper analyses the impact of Internet use on older people’s public-good and private-good community participation in terms of their motivations for community participation,and explores its heterogeneity and impact mechanisms.The find⁃ings suggest that Internet use significantly reduces the probability of community participation among older people,and instrumental variables models show robust results.Further analysis found that when older peo⁃ple crossed the‘fence’of community participation,Internet use reduced the intensity of their public-good community participation and increased the intensity of their private-good community participation.The results of the heterogeneity analysis suggest that the intensity of the impact of Internet use on older people’s community participation varies by community type.Preliminary findings on the mechanisms of influence suggest that Internet use may affect the level of community participation of older people by increasing their level of social support and social adjustment.This paper has policy implications:in the context of the country’s vigorous development of smart aging,the use of the Internet to increase older people’s self-inter⁃est community participation is being used to increase their sense of community belonging and sense of volunteerism,thereby increasing their community participation for the public-good,thereby achieving the goal that old age is still an important life stage of being productive,progressive and happy.