DOES USER SATISFACTION WITH HOME-BASED SERVICES INFLUENCE OLDER PEOPLE’S QUALITY OF LIFE? ——EVIDENCE FROM THE SURVEY IN BEIJING

Abstract

There is high need for the Chinese government to build a perfect welfare system to cope with the challenge of population ageing at this stage. The goal of this paper is to achieve policy implications how to provide a better life for older people from the perspective of care and service of high quality. We outline the relationship between current quality of life (QOL) of older people in Beijing and their satisfaction with home-based services. We make the hypothesis that older people?s QOL is positively correlated with user satisfaction with home-based services. Essentially, older people who are satisfied with the home-based services are more likely to achieve a high QOL. The outcome from multiple regression analyses shows the trend that QOL is positively influenced by user satisfaction with the personal care services. We also find that the above services are the substitution for family support with regards to the QOL, which depends on the number of recipient?s children and their household expenditure per person. However, there is no relationship found between the QOL and satisfaction with the housekeeping services. The study supports the importance of providing health and diagnosed services as well as spiritual support in order to ensure high quality of older people?s rest lives. At the same time, flexible and hierarchical public funding or subsidies should be better targeted for the older people from different family backgrounds.