摘要
中国老年人的保健消费是否受到其孤独感的影响?如果有影响,背后的作用机制是什么?本文使用中国健康与养老追踪调查数据实证回答了以上问题。考虑了内生性可能的稳健性回归结果显示,老年人的孤独感对其保健消费有着显著且稳健的正向影响,越是感到孤独的老年人,他们的保健支出的绝对水平和相对比重都会越高。产生这种影响的一个重要作用机制是社会互动,在消费保健产品和服务的过程中,老年人通过与销售人员和其他老年人进行交流,有效缓解了孤独感。据此我们建议,旨在合理规范和有效促进中国老年人保健消费的有关政策应该充分考虑到老年人孤独感的重要影响,努力实现老年人保健消费市场由情感慰藉或认知误导驱动向健康需求驱动的可持续发展方式转型。
As a major component of national economy, household consumption reflects the actual living standard of a country＇s citizens and is the central target of macroeeonomic policies. Compared with developed countries, however, the aging consumption market of China remains underdeveloped and thus has considerable potential. In the meantime, the healtheare consumption of the Chinese aging population is increasing considerably faster than any of its other consumption types, and its heahhcare expenditure has become one of the most concerning social topics in China. Both medical and heahheare expenditures are important components of household health investment. Nevertheless, heahhcare expenditure is often regarded as a part of medical expenditure and has attracted less attention and systematic study. From an empirical perspective, study of the relationship between the healthcare expenditure of aging people, their emotional demands, and the underlying mechanism is very important. In this study, we examined the causal relationship between the feeling of loneliness and the healthcare expenditure of China＇s aging population empirically, and investigated how heahheare expenditure was determined by controlling for other factors. Few studies have focused on the heahhcare expenditure of the aging population. Most studies have focused on the general heahhcare expenditure of households as a whole, and have basically ignored the effect of loneliness and other emotional feelings. Most foreign studies have used samples from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries and investigated the macro factors that affect heahheare expenditure. Studies by Chinese scholars have been based on Chinese datasets, but take a similar macro approach to determining the healtheare expenditure. We believe our research, conducted from the perspective of loneliness, covers the shortage in related studies to some extent. In this study, we used the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study （CHARLS） dataset in the first e
出处
《经济研究》
CSSCI
北大核心
2018年第1期124-137,共14页
Economic Research Journal
基金
国家社科基金重大项目(批准号:12&ZD028
16ZDA005)
霍英东教育基金会
中央财经大学青年科研创新团队和青年教师发展基金的资助
关键词
保健消费
孤独感
社会互动
Health Care Consumption
Loneliness
Social Interaction
