Children's Filial Piety Changes Life Satisfaction of the Left-Behind Elderly in Rural Areas in China?

Abstract

Along with the aging of the population and miniaturization of family structure, the problem of the left-behind elderly has become more and more prominent in China. According to the Report on the family development in China (2015) released by the National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China, left-behind elderly people account for half of the total number of the elderly, of whom 10% live alone. The left-behind elderly not only suffer physiological obstacles such as body function decline, but also face a lack of support at the material level and loneliness at the spiritual level, which greatly affects their quality of life, accounting for their lower life satisfaction than that of the ordinary elderly. The rural areas of Sichuan Province are relatively backwards in terms of economic level and have limited pension security. Therefore, the left-behind elderly in rural areas are confronted with more complicated and severe pension problems compared with those in urban areas. Meanwhile, limited by economic and regional factors, a large number of rural labor forces in Sichuan Province have transferred to cities. These long-time migrant workers cannot provide material, spiritual and life care support for their left-behind parents in rural areas in a timely fashion, which changes their filial piety behaviors, and this affects the life satisfaction of the rural left-behind elderly. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the living conditions of empty-nest elderly and their children’s filial piety in rural areas of Sichuan province in order to verify the influence mechanism of filial piety on the life satisfaction of the elderly, and to explore how to improve the rural empty-nest elderly’s life satisfaction, enabling the elderly to live a healthy and happy life.