Population Aging and Household Tourism Consumption—An Empirical Study Based on China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) Data

Abstract

The ever deepening population aging has brought opportunities and challenges to the continued expansion of tourism consumption in China. We explore the impact of population aging on household tourism consumption, by using the data from China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) in 2014, 2016 and 2018. We found that population aging has a negative mediating effect on household tourism consumption by reducing household economic conditions. The improvement of health status of the elderly and Internet use have a significant positive moderating effect on the impact of population aging on household tourism consumption, but intergenerational care have no such effect. The results of the heterogeneity analysis show that the negative impact of population aging on household tourism consumption in urban areas is greater than that in rural areas, and the negative impact of population aging on household tourism consumption of families with the old-old elderly is greater than that of families with the young-old elderly. The conclusions of this article provide important references for activating tourism consumption in China in the context of population aging.