老年优待政策、公共服务可及性与老年人身心健康

Elderly Preference Policies,Public Service Accessibility,and Elderly Health

文章基于中国老年社会追踪调查数据以及手动收集的老年优待政策数据,采用交叠双重差分模型实证检验了老年优待政策对老年群体健康状况的影响和作用机制。结果表明,老年优待政策通过经济效应、服务效应、认同效应及社会互动效应等多维途径,对老年人的生理、心理以及社会适应健康产生了显著的促进作用。异质性分析发现,农村和教育程度较低的老年群体可获得更大程度的健康效益,表明老年优待政策具有促进健康均等化的潜力。在公共服务供给水平较高的城市,老年优待政策对老年人身心健康的积极影响更为突出,这进一步强调了充足的基础设施和资源条件对社会保障政策有效性和精准性的重要性。文章还分析了地方性老年优待政策的实施情况,发现部分地区仍存在户籍限制,但即使对外地户籍老人,老年优待政策也呈现出显著的身心健康改善效果,这可能与良好的本地社会氛围和丰富的社会互动机会有关。文章结论为决策层面完善现行老年优待政策提供了有力证据支持,从差异化服务供给、改善区域间公平性等方面提供了政策启示。

Elderly preference policies are public policies designed for the public service needs of the elderly group,which directly concern the health and quality of life of the elderly.This paper is the first to conduct a comprehensive empirical study on China's elderly preference policies from an economic perspective.It focuses on examining their impact on the physical,mental,and social health of the elderly,proposes and tests the four mechanism channels of economic effect,service effect,identity effect,and social interaction effect,and conducts a cost-benefit analysis from a health perspective,enriching the existing literature on the implementation effectiveness of elderly preference policies.Using the staggered DID model,this paper finds that elderly preference policies significantly improve the self-rated health status of the elderly,reduce the risk of depression,and enhance social adaptability and life happiness.Mechanism analysis shows that the policies mainly improve the physical and mental health level of the elderly by enhancing their consumption ability and optimizing their consumption structure,improving the accessibility of public services,creating a social atmosphere of respecting and caring for the elderly,and providing more social interaction opportunities.Heterogeneity analysis finds that rural and low-educated elderly groups can obtain greater health benefits,and in cities with better public service conditions,the policy effect is more prominent.This paper also explores the implementation of local elderly preference policies,and finds that some regions still have household registration restrictions.But even for the elderly with non-local household registration,the policies also show a significant physical and mental health improvement effect,which may be related to the local good social atmosphere and rich social interaction.The cost-benefit analysis shows that as long as the annual special fiscal input for elderly preference policies is controlled within a certain level,the policies can achieve significant positive benefits.The conclusions of this paper provide strong evidence support for the decision-making level to expand and improve the current elderly preference policies,and provide policy implications from the aspects of differentiated service supply,improving regional fairness,and easing household registration restrictions.