How Do Medical Insurance and New Rural Social Pension Insurance Affect the Mental Health of the Rural Elderly?

Abstract

At a time when China's common prosperity has entered a new stage of development, the rapid increase in medical costs is still a major concern for some families who are "returning to poverty due to illness". Can the new rural pension and medical insurance effectively relieve the mental burden of the elderly? Based on the microdata of individuals from 2015 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), this paper explored the effects of medical insurance and New Rural Social Pension Insurance (NRSPI) on the mental health of the rural elderly using a fixed-effects model. It was found that participation in medical insurance significantly improved the mental health of rural elderly adults, while participation in the NRSPI had no significant effect on the mental health of the elderly adults. Based on an exploratory interpretation of the relevant mechanisms, this paper makes the following recommendations: medical service resources should be actively promoted downward, rural medical subsidies should be increased, while the design of the medical insurance system should be improved to increase farmers' motivation to participate in insurance, and the construction of cultural activities and facilities in communities in rural areas should be enriched to provide rich conditions for social participation of the rural elderly and to protect their mental health.