Do Community Home-Based Elderly Care Services Improve Life Satisfaction of Chinese Older Adults? An Empirical Analysis Based on the 2018 CLHLS Dataset

Abstract

Population aging has become a major challenge for the Chinese government. Based on the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS) in 2018, this study adopts the propensity score matching (PSM) method to assess the effect of community home-based elderly care services (CHECS) on the life satisfaction of the elderly in China. The results demonstrate that CHECS can improve their life satisfaction. Compared with life care services (LCS) and medical care services (MCS), the positive effect of spiritual and cultural services (SCS) and reconciliation and legal services (RLS) is more obvious. Moreover, the heterogeneity test demonstrates that the effect is more significant for the elderly who live with their families, whose activities of daily living are unrestricted, and whose depression levels are lower. The results obtained indicate that CHECS need precise policies for different elderly groups, attention to the positive impact of SCS and RLS on the life satisfaction of the elderly, and the substantive effectiveness of LCS and MCS.