Empirical Research Related to the Quality of Life in Chinese Urban Elderly People

With the in-depth development of China's reform and opening-up, providing for the aged and taking care of them have gradually become grave problems in the country. The traditional mode of healthcare for the aged has been weakened, and the social old-age pension is also facing a predicament of funds shortage. Therefore, the community-level old-age service is the China's expedient choice in the transitional period, while improving the old citizens’ quality of life constitutes the essential objective in terms of addressing the aging problems. Based on the data from China General Social Survey (CGSS), this paper discussed in detail both the status quo of elderly people’s life conditions and the influencing pathways of objective and subjective factors pertaining to their quality of life. 

By means of statistical analysis, this study has shown that the old people’s quality of life has been influenced by individual characteristics, family economic conditions, the degree of life richness and the crisis consciousness. The main conclusions are as follows: (1) Marital status, political status and pension insurance significantly affected the old people’s sense of well-being; (2) Gender did not impose obvious effects upon quality of life, whilst higher education level did not guarantee the evident sense of well-being; (3) The family economic conditions of the old people markedly influenced their sense of life satisfaction; (4) There existed positive correlations between pairs of family economic conditions, the degree of life richness and the crisis consciousness; (5) The number of old people feeling strong sense of well-being was smaller than that of the aged who possessed the weak sense of well-being, which also reflected the fact that the status quo of elderly people’s life quality is not as good as expected.