Multi-Track Pension System and Life Satisfaction of Urban Elders in China

• In Event: 4365 - Social Policies to Mitigate Health Inequalities Among Older Adults Around the World

Abstract

There exist three pension systems for urban older residents in China, corresponding respectively to the pension for government and public institutions (PGPI), worker’s old-age insurance for enterprise employees (WOI), and urban residents' social pension insurance (URSPI). This study examines how this multi-track pension system relates to older urbanites’ life satisfaction. The ordered logistic regression model was fitted to analyze the urban sample of the China Longitudinal Ageing Social Survey (60+ years), a nationwide representative survey collected in 2014. The mediation analyses were further adopted to investigate the potential formative mechanisms. A significantly higher level of life satisfaction was detected for those who receive PGPI benefits, relative to those who have access to URSPI and WOI, but no significant difference is detected between URSPI and WOI. Further analyses suggest that the advantage of PGPI in terms of life satisfaction is mediated not through monetary resources, but through dispositional factor of perceived self-value for the society. This study suggests that different institutional configurations of the pension system stratify older urbanites’ subjective wellbeing by virtue of factors that are associated with people’s capabilities of acting and functioning.

Author

• Anning Hu, Fudan University