Abstract
The “empty-nest” elderly family has become increasingly prevalent among old people in China. This study aimed to explore the causality between empty nests and elders’ health using effective instrumental variables, including “whether old parents talk with their families when they are upset” and “ownership of housing”. The results showed that empty nests had a significantly adverse influence on elders’ physical health, cognitive ability and psychological health. Furthermore, urban elders’ cognitive ability was more influenced by empty nests than that of rural elders. Additionally, the effects of an empty nest on elders” health were more significant among female, single elders and senior rural elders. “Living resources”, “availability of medical treatment” and “social activity engagement” were found to be significant mediators between empty nests and elders’ health, accounting for 35% of the total effect.
Highlights
With the rapidly aging population in China, many older people are considered to have an “empty nest” [1]
If the detection p-value > 0.05, it meant that excessive recognition didn’t exist. We proposed another hypothesis, which stated that living resources, availability of medical treatment and social activities may mediate the relationship between an empty nest and elders’ health based on literature review
After selecting “whether old parents talk with their family when they are upset” and “ownership of housing” as effective instrumental variables to address the endogeneity problem, we explored the causality between an empty nest and elderly health
Summary
With the rapidly aging population in China, many older people are considered to have an “empty nest” [1]. The empty nest families mean that elderly do not live with their children or do not have a child. One-child policy in China was considered one of the major catalysts contributing to the large number of empty nest elders [2]. Since 2016, China cancelled its one-child policy and fully implemented the policy of allowing each couple to have two children as an active response to the aging population. Some demographers have predicted that the ‘two-child’ policy will not lead to a baby boom [5,6,7]
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