Self-rated health among elders in different outmigration areas\u2014a case study of rural Anhui, China

Weizhen Dong

doi:10.1186/s40711-019-0096-y

Abstract

China has been a rapid growing economy in recent decades. Part of its economic development engine comes from internal rural-urban migration. The decades-long rural-urban migration is the result of China’s long-lasting uneven development between its urban and rural areas and its income and resource distribution inequality. Rural Anhui is one of the most affected outmigration regions of China. The absence of young and middle-aged villagers changed its natural villages’ demographics. It broke the self-sufficient rural family structure and their traditional lifestyle with no societal infrastructure to replace family support. Meanwhile, it created aging communities—particularly in relatively poorer villages. This study investigates rural elder villagers’ perception of their physical health in the context of rural-urban migration. It explores the reality of the left-behind rural aging population—their real life challenges and regional disparities reflected in their self-rated health status: those who are living in a relatively poorer region (county) tend to have significantly lower self-rated health (SRH) scores than their counterparts in wealthier areas. Women tend to have lower SRH scores than men, and living alone elders tend to perceive their own physical health to be poorer than others. These findings also show that regional economic condition affect individual lives, women are more vulnerable, and healthy personal interaction is an essential element for wellbeing.

Highlights

One of China’s major socioeconomic transformations in recent decades is urbanization: rural youth and middle-aged villagers moving to the cities to seek employment opportunity, and a high proportion of them have settled down in urban centers
Data collection was done in August 2015 in rural Anhui, in which 12,239 valid survey responses were obtained from 15 villages of three counties
This study found nearly a quarter (24.56%) of rural Anhui elder respondents reported “poor” or “very poor” health, while 35.24% of them reported “good” or “very good” health

Summary

Introduction

One of China’s major socioeconomic transformations in recent decades is urbanization: rural youth and middle-aged villagers moving to the cities to seek employment opportunity, and a high proportion of them have settled down in urban centers. China had 286.52 million migrant workers in 2017 (National Bureau of Statistics of China 2018), an increase from 274 million at the end of 2015 (National Bureau of Statistics of China 2016). In 2017, the total number of Anhui migrant workers was 19.2 million, an increase of 2.1% over 2016, and 66.3% of them were men; the scale of working abroad in Anhui reached 40,000 people, an increase of 22,000 people over the previous year (Anhui Survey Group of National Statistical Bureau 2018).

Methods

Findings

Conclusion