Subjective Well-being of Chinese Elderly: A Comparative Analysis among Urban China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan

Subjective Well-being of Chinese Elderly: A Comparative Analysis among Urban China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan Jia Miao, PhD Candidate Center for Applied ...
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Subjective Well-being of Chinese Elderly: A Comparative Analysis among Urban China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan

Jia Miao, PhD Candidate Center for Applied Social and Economic Research, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology [email protected]

Xiaogang Wu, Professor Center for Applied Social and Economic Research, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology [email protected]

University of Michigan Population Studies Center Research Report 16-868 August 2016

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the “Ageing in the Asia Pacific” Research Symposium, University of New South Wales, Australia, 27-29 September, 2015. The research was supported by the General Research Fund (646411) from the Research Grants Council (RGC) of Hong Kong. The HKPSSD data collection was conducted by the Center for Applied Social and Economic Research (CASER) at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), with funding support from the RGC Central Policy Unit’s Strategic Public Policy Research Scheme (HKUST6001-SPPR-08). Direct all correspondence to Jia Miao (email address: [email protected]) or Xiaogang Wu ([email protected]), Center for Applied Social and Economic Research (CASER), Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR.

Subjective Well-being of Chinese Elderly: A Comparative Analysis among Urban China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan

ABSTRACT This paper investigates the relative importance of living arrangement and social participation for the elderly’s subjective well-being (happiness) in three Chinese societies (Hong Kong, urban China and Taiwan) with different levels of development. Based on comparable survey data, we find that co-residence with children is less closely associated with the elderly’s psychological well-being in the more developed society. The elderly in Hong Kong who live independently with a spouse are in a significantly better emotional state than those living with adult children and grandchildren. Social participation has a greater positive effect on subjective well-being among the aged in Hong Kong than among those in urban China and Taiwan. Furthermore, elderly women may benefit more from independent living and social engagement than their male counterparts. These findings suggest that encouraging social participation among the elderly may be an effective way to enhance their well-being and achieve active aging.

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Subjective Well-being of Chinese Elderly: A Comparative Analysis among Urban China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan

1. Introduction Longevity is one of humanity’s greatest triumphs, but population aging is in fact one of its greatest challenges, and this is true both economically and socially and in all countries. This challenge is particularly severe for Chinese societies (mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan), which together host one fifth of the world’s elderly population (The World Bank, 2015). 1 Improving the quality of life and subjective well-being of elderly Chinese population will contribute to the international community by enriching our knowledge about sustainable and cost-effective aging policy. The subjective well-being of the elderly is vulnerable to declines in economic and social support because aging is often associated with a shrinking social network, reduced income and deteriorating health. To ensure the psychological health of old people, it is crucial to strength their social support system. Among the various types of social support network, living arrangement and social participation have received intensive attention (Brehm and Rahn 1997; Hermalin and Yang 2004; Hsu et al., 2015; Kawachi and Berkman 2001; Li et al., 2009; Ren and Treiman 2015; Wallace and Pichler 2009; Yip 2007). Living arrangement is considered as a form of fundamental, individual-level social capital through which family members gain instrumental and emotional support from each other. Social participation generates social capital at the aggregate level through which individuals diversify their social connection and develop a sense of value and attachment. Thus, social participation offers meaningful psychological support beyond the family network (Berkman 2000; Yamaoka 2008). In empirical studies, however, the impacts of co-residence and social participation are less than clear. A considerable number of studies have revealed that living with immediate family members brings emotional benefits (e.g. Chen and Short 2008; Ren and Treiman 2015). Yet other studies have found that it may also damage an individual’s subjective well-being, as tensions and conflicts may arise when family members live together (e.g. Rook 1984; Rook and Pietromonaco 1987). The positive association between social participation and happiness has been documented extensively in western countries (Gundelach and Kreiner 2004; Helliwell and Putnam 2004), but the relationship is less frequently observed in Asian societies (Yamaoka 2008; Yip 2007). Social and cultural norms that influence an individual’s expectation may explain the mixed results (Chen and Short 2008; Yamaoka 2008). In a kinship-dominated traditional society, 1

One in every five people aged 65 and over lived in a Chinese society by 2014.

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Subjective Well-being of Chinese Elderly: A Comparative Analysis among Urban China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan

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the elderly would expect to live with and be taken care of by their children (Logan and Bian 1998, 1999), failing which they would feel less than happy. On the contrary, a modernized society puts a major emphasis on individualism, independence, social life and self-fulfillment. Since participating in various social activities is an essential way to fulfill these cultural expectation, social participation may be a deciding factor for subjective well-being (Thorton et al, 1984; Helliwell and Putnam 2004). The extant literature seems to suggest that, as a society moves forward on a traditional-modern continuum, the elderly may benefit more psychologically from social participation, and less from living with children. In this study, we test this conjecture by comparing urban China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. In contrast to previous studies of cross-country comparison, the three Chinese societies in this study obviously share similar cultural characteristics. Such a comparison can provide more solid evidence to examine how the determinants of the elderly’s subjective well-being evolve with socioeconomic development because we can control for unobserved social and cultural heterogeneity to a great extent. We test the hypothesis by addressing two inter-related research questions: (1) do emotional benefits associated with co-residence with children decline as societies become more developed? And (2) does social participation have a greater effect on psychological well-being in a more developed society? To the best of our knowledge, there has not been such a comparison among three Chinese societies, mostly because high-quality, population-based survey data were not available (especially in Hong Kong). In this research, we use data from the Hong Kong Panel Study of Social Dynamics (HKPSSD), a comparable data recently collected in mainland China, China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), and a representative data collected in Taiwan, the Taiwan Social Change Survey (TSCS). These datasets enable us to draw a comprehensive picture of the living conditions and quality of life of elderly Chinese. Furthermore, this comparative study provides a unique opportunity to test hypotheses about social development and the determinants of subjective well-being. The results in turn help us understand the mixed findings reported in previous studies. From a public policy standpoint, the experiences of Hong Kong and Taiwan provide useful information for policy makers of mainland China to foresee how the factors influencing the elderly’s well-being would change if the country’s current economic development continues. The findings offer a basis for making forward-looking, culturallyappropriate policy choices.

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Subjective Well-being of Chinese Elderly: A Comparative Analysis among Urban China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan

2. Background: Rapid Population Aging and Changes in Family Norms Chinese societies are ageing and they will do so increasingly rapidly in the near future. Hong Kong, the first maturely industrialized Chinese society, had already grown into an aging society back in the mid-1980s. 2 Taiwan joined the ranks 10 years later. Mainland China, with a population exceeding 1.2 billion, formally became “aged” in the year 2000 (World Bank 2015). The main concern is that its socioeconomic development has not kept pace with the rapid speed of population aging (as shown in Figure 1). By 2015, the elderly will make up 9.1 percent, 14.5 percent and 12 percent of the total population in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, respectively. The percentages are projected to double in the coming 15 to 20 years. By 2035, all three societies will become “super-aged societies”, in which one in five citizens will be a person aged 65-plus (Chen 2006; Taiwan National Development Council 2014; Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department 2012). A super-aged society is economically unsustainable without solid governmental plans made well in advance to cumulate sufficient resources, including financial flows, technology innovation, and governance experience (Muramatsu and Akiyama 2011). Figure 1. Aging population and GDP: Mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan 40000

Projection

Actual

35000

Population ages 65+ %

25

30000 20

25000 20000

15

15000

10

10000 5 0

GDP per capita (US$)

30

5000 1995

2000

2005

Mainland (Right) Mainland (Left)

2010

2014

2015

2020

Hong Kong (Right) Hong Kong (Left)

2025

2030

2035

0

Taiwan (Right) Taiwan (Left)

Data sources: Chen 2006; Taiwan National Development Council 2014; Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department, 2012 2

According to the widely used definition, a community becomes an “aging society” when more than 7 percent of its population are aged 65 and over.

Subjective Well-being of Chinese Elderly: A Comparative Analysis among Urban China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan

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Rapid aging in Chinese societies has been accompanied by a substantial change in family values. For centuries, the ideal Chinese family is a patriarchal extended family. An adult child, usually the eldest son is obligated to live with his parents and take care of them, even after getting married and having children of his own (Whyte 2005; Silverstein and Cong, 2006). This tradition stems from Confucian doctrines that emphasize children’s filial obligation to their parents. Nowadays, however, declined preference toward co-residence may suggest that traditional family norms have changed (Logan and Bian 1999). This change in family norms is taking place in the three Chinese societies at different paces. Hong Kong seems to be the least bound by traditional norms among the three societies. Yip and Forrest (2014) find that 40 percent of the young people in Hong Kong think that living with their parents has nothing to do with filial piety; 65 percent of them said that they would move out of their parents’ home as soon as they can afford to live independently. On the contrary, the younger generation in Taiwan is most likely to adhere to filial piety with 61 percent of them believing that children should continue to live with their parents after getting married; 55 percent of younger Taiwanese insisted that a married couple should live with the husband’s parents (calculated from Taiwan Social Change Survey 2011-2012). Mainland Chinese may be more conservative than Hong Kong people but less traditional than Taiwanese. Fifty-four percent of mainland China’s senior residents reported that they would prefer to live with their adult children (calculated from China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study 2011). Why do the three Chinese societies differ in the extent to which they are preserving traditional values? The answer is believed to be related to the divergent economic and political paths that they have taken in the past century (Davis-Friedmann 1991; Logan and Bian 1999; Wong 1975). As a British colony for one and a half centuries, Hong Kong is the most modernized Chinese society due to its colonial history and long-term exposure to industrialization and internationalization. Western institution and culture brought new values and norms into Hong Kong people’s daily life giving way to a unique mix of Eastern and Western cultures. Moreover, Hong Kong took a fast track to industrialization in the 1950-60’s, much earlier than did mainland China and Taiwan. The Communist regime’s rise to power led a great wave of capitalists and refugees to migrate to Hong Kong. These people brought along with them capital, technical skills

Subjective Well-being of Chinese Elderly: A Comparative Analysis among Urban China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan

and labor forces essential for industrial development. Industrialization disrupted the traditional family norms by putting an emphasis on new values, such as individual achievement, economic independence and social and geographical mobility. As a result, the nuclear family, consisting of a married couple with or without unmarried children, became the most prevalent family structure in Hong Kong even before the 1960’s (Wong 1975). 3 Hong Kong continued to develop rapidly economically thanks to its unique geographical position and practice of laissez-faire capitalism. The city eventually emerged as a highly modernized industrial-commercial center in Asia in the 1990’s and has become the most modernized society among the three in this study. Taiwan is similar to Hong Kong in terms of its colonial history and economic miracles back in the 1970’s. However, Taiwan may have preserved more traditional Chinese family values than Hong Kong for several reasons. First, in its half a century of Japanese colonization, Taiwan never did undergo an industrial revolution or internationalization. The colony was regarded as an agricultural appendage to be developed as a complement to Japan. It was still an agriculture-dominant society in 1945 when the Nationalist Party took power (Amsden 1979). Second, Taiwan’s economic growth after the 1960’s relied heavily on export-oriented industrialization which was facilitated by small- and medium-sized family enterprises. Supported by the government, family firms emerged on a large scale and eventually made Taiwan one of the “Four Little Dragons” in the 1970’s. These firms were organized along lines of the patriarchal extended family and adopted collectivist ethics. They were competitive in the market because of their flexibility and specialization, because of underpaid labor resources and because employees worked tirelessly for the long-term benefit of the family (Greenhalgh 1994). The family firm served as an important place to practice and preserve traditional family values, which were legitimized through economic success. Nowadays, family businesses account for more than 70 percent of Taiwanese enterprises (Chinese Family Business Global 2013), much higher than the average in Asia (Claessens et al., 2000). Industrialization and economic growth in mainland China influenced traditional family values in a way similar to that in Taiwan, especially after its economic reform and opening up to the world in the late 1970’s. The greatest difference may lie in the fact that political campaigns in 3

The Hong Kong 1960 Pilot Census showed that the nuclear family accounted for 73.5 percent of all the families in the city.

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Subjective Well-being of Chinese Elderly: A Comparative Analysis among Urban China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan

the 1950-70’s have undermined the influence of traditional family norms in mainland China. After 1949, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) considered patriarchy family norms backward and feudalistic and tried to eliminate them from new socialist China. The CCP adopted a variety of measures to reduce parental authority, and to promote egalitarianism between parents and children and between wife and husband. For instance, it implemented a new marriage law banning parents from intervening with children’s marriage. It also offered young people jobs in state sectors or the military to increase their independence. Campaigns on reforming family norms reached the peak in the Cultural Revolution, in which young people were encouraged to draw a clear line between themselves and parents from an undesirable political background, and to criticize their parents who made mistakes. These measures profoundly decreased the impact of traditional family norms (Davis-Friedmann 1991) and may have contributed to the greater decline in traditional norms in mainland China than in Taiwan today. 3. Research Hypotheses: Living arrangement, Social Participation and Subjective Well-Being In studies of the elderly’s subjective well-being, living arrangement and social participation have received extensive attention. Living arrangement is associated with social capital at the individual level, through which the elderly receive long-term emotional and instrumental support from household members. Social participation generates essential social capital at the aggregate level. It offers meaningful social roles and broad social support which are particularly crucial for old people who have withdrawn from labor markets. The impacts of co-residence and social engagement on emotional health vary across countries. This may be attributed to normative attitudes toward family responsibility related to socioeconomic development (Chen and Short 2008, Logan et al., 1999). In a traditional family-dominated society, nearly all the needs of an individual are fulfilled within the family. The process of modernization, however, involves defunctionalization of the family. In a modern society, human needs (education, social support and interaction) are primarily satisfied through the larger community (Cowgill and Holmes 1972; Gundelach and Kreiner 2004). Social development theory suggests that the elderly may rely less on resources and aids offered by family members as a society modernizes. Instead, social engagement may play a bigger role in their life.

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Subjective Well-being of Chinese Elderly: A Comparative Analysis among Urban China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan

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3.1 Living arrangem ent Living arrangement has mixed effects on the elderly’s subjective well-being. What has been firmly established is that presence of a spouse is a desirable condition. Marriage may increase economic resources and offer a wide range of support necessary for active aging (Waite and Gallagher 2000). Outside of marriage, the empirical results are largely inconclusive, even in regard to the impact of living alone. Conceptually, the elderly living alone are more likely to experience social isolation which could damage their psychological well-being (Wang et al. 2014; Sun et al. 2011). The situation becomes even worse when the old person is widowed (Li et al. 2005). This pattern is relatively clear in societies where co-residence with adult children is the norm. For instance, multiple studies on mainland China and Taiwan reveal that the elderly living alone possess a lower level of subjective well-being than those living with others (Chen and Short 2008; Wang et al. 2001). Nevertheless, several studies in western countries suggest that the elderly living alone are not disadvantaged in mental and physical health compared to those living with other family members (Iliffe et al. 1992; Davis et al. 1997). The most intriguing mixed results concern the relative benefits of co-residence with adult children versus living with a spouse independently. Although living with adult children increases the likelihood of receiving instrumental and emotional support from these children, frictions in family life and lack of privacy may diminish the elderly’s subjective well-being (Ren and Treiman 2015). Research in western countries shows that co-residence with children does not promote, or could even be detrimental to, elderly parents’ mental health, except in the time of crisis (De Jong Gierveld and Van Tilburg 1999; Silverstein and Bengtson 1994). Traditionally in a Chinese society, co-residence with children is thought to promote the elderly’s psychological well-being. However, this may not be the case nowadays in mainland China. Chen and Short (2008) and Wang et al. (2014) reveal that presence of adult children does not bring extra benefits to the oldest old (aged 80 and over). Ren and Treiman (2015) extended the sample to all elderly aged 60 and above and found that old people living with children even reported a lower level of happiness and less life satisfaction than those living independently with their spouse. Our knowledge about what the situation is in Hong Kong and Taiwan is limited. The existing studies may imply that at least for the elderly in mainland China, social and economic development has reduced the importance of co-residence with children for maintaining their emotional well-being.

Subjective Well-being of Chinese Elderly: A Comparative Analysis among Urban China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan

What is also unclear is whether or not living with grandchildren enhances or reduces the elderly’s psychological well-being. Studies in the US frequently report negative consequences. Grandparenting in the US is often triggered by involuntary events or crises in the parental generation, such as financial constraints, incarceration and substance abuse. It is more likely to be undertaken out of need than desire and leads to diminished emotional well-being (Baker and Siliverstein 2012). On the contrary, studies in mainland China have shown grandparenting to be beneficial to the elderly. The elderly living with grandchildren, with or without the parental generation, enjoy enhanced emotional well-being. The presence of grandchildren even compensates for the negative impact of living simultaneously with their adult children (Ren and Treiman 2015; Silverstein et al. 2006). These benefits may be attributed to the traditional values of the Chinese family. In the traditional Chinese society, household members put an emphasis on collective family goals over individual goals, and make their own contribution within a cultural system of filial piety. Grandparenting may optimize labor division within the family by easing the burden of the younger generation. By living with and taking care of grandchildren, the elderly gain self-worth and respect from others (Silverstein et al. 2006). In addition, grandchildren indicate prosperity and extension of a family. Thus living with grandchildren is associated with great joy for old people (Chen et al., 2011; Chu et al., 2011). Based on the above analysis, we derive our first research hypothesis as follows:

H1. As a society becomes more socioeconomically developed, co-residence with younger generations plays a less important role in promoting the elderly’s subjective well-being. H1a. The elderly living independently with a spouse enjoy greater subjective well-being than those co-resident with their adult children, and this is more likely to be the case for the elderly in Hong Kong than for those in mainland China and Taiwan. H1b. The presence of grandchildren is less likely to benefit the elderly’s subjective wellbeing in Hong Kong than in mainland China and Taiwan. 3.2 Social participation From the perspective of socioeconomic development, when people and societies become richer and more modernized, people’ needs shift from the lower order ones (biological and safetyrelated needs) to the higher order ones (self-esteem and self-fulfillment). They will feel happy only when their higher order needs are satisfied (Sirgy 1986, Hagerty 1999; Lane 2000, Easterlin

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Subjective Well-being of Chinese Elderly: A Comparative Analysis among Urban China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan

2001). Social participation is an important way to satisfy one’s higher order needs. By joining social organizations and participating in social activities, individuals gain a sense of value, belonging, and attachment (Berkman et al, 2000). It is predicted that independence and social participation are more closely related to a person’s subjective well-being in more developed societies. Social participation may affect subjective well-being through two processes. The first one is a social process. Participating in social organizations may diversify and broaden one’s social networks, through which people share information, provide and receive support, and work together to achieve collective goals that could not be accomplished by one individual (Nahapiet and Ghoshal 1998; Portes 2000). Besides social connections, social participation may provide friendship and more affective ties, which are increasingly important in an atomized modern world (Wallace and Pichler 2014). The other process is a psychological one. Taking part in various social groups may create or reinforce meaningful social roles, such as occupational and community roles, which in turn provides a sense of value and attachment, and promotes selfesteem and self-worth (Berkman et al, 2000). These positive psychological resources can improve subjective well-being by enhancing the ease with which people adapt to stressful life events, promoting positive affect and preventing depression (Cohen, 2004). Social participation is particularly important for the elderly who have left the labor market as it may serve as a substitute activity and compensate for their lost social roles. In western countries, the positive relationship between social participation and the elderly’s subjective well-being has been well established (Kawachi et al., 1999). For example, researchers have found that being a part of social organizations increases happiness among the elderly in the U.S. and European countries (Veenstra 2000; Wallace and Pichler 2009). In Russia declining social engagement and cohesion was correlated with increased mortality after the fall of the Soviet Union (Kennedy et al. 1998). Yet the beneficial effect of social participation is seldom observed in Chinese societies. Yamaoka (2008) find no association between social participation and subjective well-being in the general population in East Asian societies, including Hong Kong, mainland China and Taiwan. However, his analysis pooled all regions together and reported only the mean effect of social participation. It is highly possible that negative effects in some societies canceled out the positive influences in others. Yip and her colleague found (2007) no statistical association between social participation and subjective

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Subjective Well-being of Chinese Elderly: A Comparative Analysis among Urban China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan

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well-being in rural China. They used a sample from three counties in Shandong Province, so it is not clear whether their findings would hold for mainland China in general. Based on the above studies of human development, modernization and social engagement, we derive our second research hypothesis:

H2. Social participation has greater impacts on the elderly’s subjective well-being in Hong Kong than in urban China and Taiwan. 4. Data, Measures, and Method 4.1 Data Our sample consists of Chinese aged 60 and above and is drawn from the 2010 wave of the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) in mainland China (Xie and Hu 2014), the 2011 wave of the Hong Kong Panel Study of Social Dynamics (HKPSSD) and the 2010 wave of the Taiwan Social Change Survey (TSCS). The CFPS is a nationally representative longitudinal survey. Using a multistage sampling method, it collects extensive information on the demographic, socioeconomic and health status of individuals and families (see details in Xie and Hu 2014). The HKPSSD is the first household panel survey in Hong Kong. Like the CFPS, it generates a representative sample of Hong Kong households, and collects a wide range of information on household and individual characteristics (Wu 2016). The TSCS is a long-term, cross-sectional survey project that has been following five-year cycles since 1985. It aims to track social changes in Taiwan by providing data on various topics covering family lives, economic activities, and social behaviors (Chang and Fu 2004). The data used in this study come from the Health and Risk Society questionnaire modules of the sixth (2010) wave of the TSCS. To facilitate comparison between the three societies, we restricted our sample to urban residents in mainland China and Taiwan. After removing any observations with missing information for any variables, the sample size for analysis is 3,118 for urban China, 1,515 for Hong Kong and 799 for Taiwan. 4.2 M easurem ent and m ethod The dependent variable, subjective well-being, is measured by happiness in this study. This measurement is both valid and comparable. On the one hand, it is well documented that happiness, though not perfectly, does reflect respondents’ feelings of well-being and capture a substantial amount of variance. On the other hand, researchers have shown that the factors that

Subjective Well-being of Chinese Elderly: A Comparative Analysis among Urban China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan

normally determine how happy people feel, such as making a living, family life and health, are similar across societies. Hence, answers to happiness question are comparable, although the question does leave everyone free to define his/her own well-being (Esterlin 2001; Gundelach and Kreiner 2004). We measured happiness with a dichotomous variable which equals 1 if the respondent reported “very happy” and “happy” on a five-point scale (the CFPS and version A of the TSCS) or “extremely happy”, “very happy” and “happy” on a seven-point scale (the HKPSSD and version B of the TSCS). We classify the living arrangement into five categories: 4 living alone, living independently with a spouse, 5 living with children (two-generation family), and living with children and grandchildren (three-generation family). 6 Social participation is measured by a dummy variable which equals 1 if the respondent participated in any type of organization, such as fraternity groups, service clubs, political clubs, labor unions, religious groups, sports groups, literary, art, discussion, or study groups, and hobby clubs. To capture effects of socioeconomic status, we included measurements of income, education (whether the respondent had completed senior high school) and whether the respondent was still active in labor market. Because the TSCS in Taiwan offers only categorical income, we calculated individual income by taking a mean of each category. 7 In addition, we control for a set of individual characteristics that were found to affect subjective? well-being, living arrangement, and social participation simultaneously, including age, gender, marital status and self-reported health. We use binary logistic regression to estimate the effects of living arrangement and social participation on well-being among elderly Chinese. We run separate regression models for each society to investigate whether their impacts varied across societies at different levels of modernization.

4

We treat “living with others” as missing value. It causes 106 cases deleted. Less than 0.5% of the elderly lived with their spouse and their own parents/spouse’s parents in our sample. We classified these cases as “living independently with a spouse”. 6 Studies showed that a new form of household has emerged in Chinese societies, the “generation-skipping” household consisting of grandparent(s) and one or more non-adult grandchildren but no members of the middle generation. In our sample, the “generation-skipping” households make up 3.2%, 1.4% and 2.3% of all households in urban China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, respectively. We combine this type of household with “living with children and grandchildren” due to the small proportion. 7 To facilitate comparison, we also constructed four levels of individual income defined by the 25th, 50th, and 75th quartiles. The results are not significantly different from that of continuous income, thus we use continuous measurement for ease of interpretation. 5

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Subjective Well-being of Chinese Elderly: A Comparative Analysis among Urban China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan

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5. Empirical Results 5.1 Descriptive evidence Table 1 provides a comparative profile of the elderly in the three Chinese societies. The aged in Taiwan enjoy the highest level of happiness among the three groups with 83 percent of them reporting they were happy. The percentage is 74 in urban China. Hong Kong is the most modernized but nearly 40 percent of its elderly reported feeling unhappy. This is attributable to the crowded housing, absence of universal pension and few social support for the elderly. The result is in line with previous studies which reveal that economic prosperity does not necessarily increase happiness because people would simply shift their concerns from basic survival needs toward higher level needs such as political and interpersonal relationship problems as living standard improves (Inglehart et al. 2008; Yang 2008). In general, the elderly in Hong Kong live more independently than their counterparts in urban China and Taiwan. Sixteen percent of the senior people in Hong Kong live alone. The proportion is twice as high as that in urban China, and four times as high as that in Taiwan. Extended families only account for 12 percent of all households in Hong Kong. This indicates that young people tend to move out of their parents’ house when they have children. Forty-two percent of the elderly in Hong Kong live with their adult children. The percentage is the highest among the three societies. This may due to the fact that Hong Kong has the most expensive housing in the world (Cox and Pavletich 2015). Many young people cannot afford to rent, let alone buy, an apartment, and have no choice but to live with their parents even after they get married. In addition, as is the case in other developed societies, late marriage and later childbearing have become a common practice in Hong Kong. By 2014 the median age at first marriage was 29.1 for women and 31.2 for men in Hong Kong. The median age of women at first childbirth was 31.3 (Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department, 2015). Thus, young people have been postponing their plans to set up their own home. The traditional multigenerational family is most prevalent in Taiwan, in which three quarters of the elderly live in two- or three-generation families. This may be related to the prosperity of family businesses. In the patriarchal tradition of Taiwan, sons take up the proprietorship of the family business after the father retires. Therefore, it is unnecessary for young people to find a job and housing elsewhere. The popularity of family businesses in Taiwan also led to a high labor market participation and high income among the elderly. Approximately one quarter of the elderly in Taiwan are still active in the labor market at the time of survey. Also, their income is much higher than their counterparts in urban China and Hong Kong.

Subjective Well-being of Chinese Elderly: A Comparative Analysis among Urban China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan

Table 1. Descriptive statistics of the elderly (60 +) in Urban China, Hong Kong and Taiwan Variable Happiness (1=happy)

Hong Kong Mean SD 0.609

Urban China Mean SD 0.736

Living arrangement Living alone Living with spouse Living with children Living with children and grandchildren

0.164 0.300 0.415 0.122

0.072 0.364 0.263 0.302

0.036 0.201 0.357 0.399

0.120

0.136

0.461

Participation in social organizations (1=yes) Demographic characteristics Male Age Oldest old (aged 80+) Married (1=Yes, 0=widowed or others)

0.492 70.035 0.141 0.739

Socioeconomic status characteristics Senior high school and above (Yes=1) Monthly income (in USD) Active in labor market (1=Yes)

0.356 568.206 0.145

7.884

1162.336

0.499 68.834 0.924 0.784 0.354 89.703 0.123

7.189

183.284

Taiwan Mean SD 0.829

0.487 69.700 0.167 0.728 0.438 962.023 0.249

Health status Self-reported good health (1=yes)

0.457

0.318

0.504

N

1,515

3,118

799

8.139

1464.847

The percentage of the elderly living in multigenerational households is nearly identical in urban China and Hong Kong. The difference is that, the more than half of those in urban China live in three-generation families, while the more than three quarters of those in Hong Kong live in two-generation families. This may suggest that, compared with their counterparts in Hong Kong, young people in urban China are more likely to move out of their parents’ house when the get married or find a job. At the same time, they are also more likely to live with their parents again for seeking assistance with childbearing when they have children (Chu et al. 2011). The level of social participation is significantly higher in Taiwan than in urban China and Hong Kong. Forty-five percent of the elderly in Taiwan are a member of at least one social organization. This may be due to the fact that Taiwan has put great efforts into enhancing social participation and community development since the 1990’s. The proportion of the elderly who have joined social organizations is slightly higher in urban China than in Hong Kong. Nonetheless, this does not necessarily indicate that the elderly in urban China have a more active social life. Many of the social organizations in mainland China are in fact quasi-official in nature

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Subjective Well-being of Chinese Elderly: A Comparative Analysis among Urban China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan

rather than grass-roots, because of restrictive legislation on the registration of social organizations. The majority of social organizations in urban China are linked to the state, and they organize activities under the close supervision of various tiers of the government (Saich 2000). The elderly who have joined social organizations in Hong Kong and urban China may be different in many aspects, such as frequency of participation, level of involvement and benefit derived from the participation. 5.2 Living arrangem ent and subjective w ell-being To better understand the association between living arrangement and subjective well-being, we conducted binary logistic regression analysis. Table 2 shows that the association varies across the three societies. In Hong Kong, the elderly attach more importance to independence than their counterparts in the other two societies. They are happiest when they live independently with a spouse. The odds of being happy reduces by 24 percent ( 1 − e −0.270 ) when they live with their grown children. The negative effect is also observed in urban China, consistent with previous studies. In Taiwan, however, there is no significant difference in the level of happiness between the elderly living with their children and those living independently with a spouse. This may be because Taiwan has preserved traditional family values to a greater extent than the other two societies. Even though the Taiwanese’s preference for co-residence has been gradually declining in recent decades because of increasing urbanization and migration (Chattopadhyay and Marsh 1999), many elderly people still prefer to live with their children. Our research hypothesis 1a is thus supported. We find that grand-parenting does not improve the elderly’s emotional state in Hong Kong. All three generations under the same roof lowers the odds of feeling happy by 33 percent ( 1 − e −0.396 ) among the elderly in Hong Kong. In contrast, in urban China, although living with adult children reduced the happiness of the elderly, the negative effects disappeared when there is a grandchild in the household. Multiple generations living together is considered the greatest source of joy for old people in the traditional Chinese society, and it is also an important way through which they can continue to contribute to the collective family goals and gain self-worth. The results suggest that in the less modernized urban China and Taiwan, the elderly are more likely to derive emotional benefit from living with their grandchildren than in Hong Kong. Our research hypothesis 1b is supported.

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Subjective Well-being of Chinese Elderly: A Comparative Analysis among Urban China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan

Table 2. Coefficients of binary logistic regression for happiness among elderly on living arrangement and socioeconomic status in Urban China, Hong Kong and Taiwan

Living arrangement (Ref.=Living with spouse) Living alone Living with children Living with children and grandchildren Male Age Married Education (Senior high school and above=1) Log income Active in labor market (Yes=1) Self-reported good health (Yes=1) Constant Log likelihood LR Chi2 Observations

Hong Kong

Urban China

Taiwan

-0.660** (0.215) -0.270+ (0.139) -0.396* (0.198) -0.252* (0.118) 0.007 (0.008) -0.009 (0.174) 0.221+ (0.119) 0.006 (0.016) 0.107 (0.184) 0.852*** (0.114) -0.126 (0.648) -971.136 85.06 1,515

-0.345+ (0.202) -0.257* (0.114) 0.017 (0.109) -0.235** (0.088) 0.032*** (0.007) 0.315* (0.134) 0.214* (0.093) 0.035* (0.014) -0.584*** (0.130) 0.912*** (0.100) -1.609** (0.551) -1720.309 156.43 3,118

-0.394 (0.606) -0.175 (0.287) 0.086 (0.293) 0.154 (0.220) -0.011 (0.014) -0.230 (0.265) 0.161 (0.208) 0.011 (0.025) -0.368 (0.256) 1.587*** (0.228) 1.806 (1.130) -333.927 64.35 799

Notes: Standard errors in parentheses. *** p

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