INT’L. J. AGING AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT, Vol. 77(3) 189-209, 2013

SOCIAL SUPPORT AND LIFE SATISFACTION AMONG OLDER ADULTS IN CHINA: FAMILY-BASED SUPPORT VERSUS COMMUNITY-BASED SUPPORT

YUYING SHEN, PHD Texas Tech University, Lubbock DALE E. YEATTS, PHD University of North Texas, Denton

ABSTRACT

Family-based support has been the traditional care arrangement for the elderly in China. With the maturing of its “one child per couple” policy and the changing scenarios of family structure and cultural norms, these traditional care arrangements for the Chinese elderly are becoming dismantled. Centers and associations within the community have gradually become the major infrastructures to provide old age service and support in China. This study examined the effects of family-based and community-based support on life satisfaction among older Chinese adults, using data from the pilot survey of China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) in 2008. A series of multilevel models were assessed with statistical package SAS 9.2 among 1,398 Chinese adults aged 45 or older. The results suggest that even with the inclusion of community-based support, family-based support variable, the perceived future help from family members, still significantly predicted the life satisfaction among older Chinese adults.

The rapid aging of world population prompts concerns about the well-being of the elderly around the world. Life satisfaction, conceptualized as elder’s sense that they are living meaningful and satisfying lives (Sun, Waldron, Gitelson, & Ho, 2011), is one of the most frequently used indicators to measure older adults’ 189 Ó 2013, Baywood Publishing Co., Inc. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.2190/AG.77.3.b http://baywood.com

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well-being in literature by researchers. China has been through a rapid demographic transition since the 1980s, resulting from its nationwide “one-child per couple” policy as well as the declining fertility rate and improving longevity. The newly released census data indicated that 13.3% of the total Chinese population was aged 60 or over in 2011 (Hilton, 2011). And this graying trend of population in China is predicted to be continuously accelerating in recent decades at one of the fastest rates ever recorded (Giles, Wang, & Zhao, 2010). Meanwhile, the changing scenarios of family size and traditional cultural norms like filial piety is challenging the traditional old age support mechanisms and transforming the older people’ lives in China. The Chinese government has been making efforts to develop a comprehensive response to address these challenges. Developing community has thus been adopted and practiced in China as a way to encourage grassroots efforts in old age support in the context of the gradually decreased family support and inadequate state provision (Pei & Tang, 2011; Xu, Gao, & Yan, 2005). Community-based elderly organizations and activity centers have been set up around the nation with the aim of providing organized as well as informal social support and community-based ties for the elderly (Xu et al., 2005). How has changing family dynamics impacted older Chinese adults’ life satisfaction? And how have the community-based ties and support been related to the life satisfaction among older adults in current China? This article tried to provide an answer to these questions by examining the association between life satisfaction among older adults in China and its association between family-based and community-based support. The community study literature emphasizes the different definitions of community—ranging from a geographical area defined by administrative boundaries to a dense inter-connected network of people who care about each other (Kaplan, 2004). In this study, community-based support refers to formal or informal support and help available to older adults from the organizations and centers within the community and from people other than family members residing in the same community. And community is defined as a geographic urban neighborhood or rural village. BACKGROUND Changing Scenario of China’s Old Age Support Mechanism Traditional Chinese cultural values emphasize the obligation of adult children (sons particularly) to support and care for their parents in old age. In Confucian ideals, filial piety (Xiao in Chinese) not only benefits the individual, but rather the country and the world, as such behavior and norms will lead to peace and harmony throughout the world (Ebrey, 1996). Filial piety is thus one of the virtues to be held above all else in Chinese culture and has been the dominant topic of Chinese literature extolled in many forms over a long history in China. For thousands of years, multigenerational family, which has been characterized

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by a strict loyalty-based extended structure tied to a close-knit network of kinship, has been the main source of social security support for the elderly in China (Zimmer & Kwong, 2003). Family-based support in old age has also been encouraged and advocated by the Chinese government. The obligation that children have to their parents is not just a moral virtue but has been formalized into China’s Family Law. In addition, the lack of pensions and formal state services for the elderly in China also leave many elderly no choice but to depend on their families for old age support and care (Gu & Liang, 1994; Pei & Tang, 2011). Compared to its Western developed counterparts, China’s social security systems and stateprovided old age support are relatively immature. The Chinese government started its pension system early in 1951 after the founding of the new Chinese Communist Party government. Under this system, all the cadres (government officials) and workers employed by the government and state-owned enterprises in the urban areas were provided with generous benefits while the rural population had to rely on land and family as the source of old age support (Ding, 2003). However, this family-based support mechanism has been transforming rapidly in recent years with the changing demographic structure in China. Due to the dramatic fertility decline in China, which had dropped from 7.5 in the early 1950s to the below replacement level of 1.8 in 2007 and was projected to maintain a much lower rate in coming decades (Cai, 2010), the improved longevity over the past 2 decades together with the success of its nationwide “one-child per couple policy,” China is now experiencing a dramatic shrinking not only in the working-age population but also in the family size. Family structure in China therefore has begun to shift from larger and multigenerational family to smaller and nuclear family. Furthermore, the continuing migration of young Chinese both across and within the national borders under the social forces of globalization and urbanization has been transforming the scenario and dynamics of Chinese people’s lives in a tremendous way. Based on an opinion poll on family and marriage conducted by the All-China Women’s Federation (Tang, 2007), the proportions of younger adults living apart from their parents were as high as 69% in urban area and 59% in rural areas in China in 2003. In addition, accompanying the cultural transmissions facilitated by the Internet and other new technologies in the current globalization era, traditional cultural values are consequently undergoing many transformations. Some traditional cultural values such as the respect and filial piety on the part of the younger generations to the older generation have consequently begun to fade (Cheng & Chan, 2006a; Zimmer & Kwong, 2003). Studies also indicated that there had been a tendency of decline of expectation for filial piety from both the adult children and older parents. For example, a study by Zhan (2004) showed that adult children in China now would prioritize their job demand over the obligation to help their parents when the need of help was in conflict with their job demand. Such changing patterns of family life seem to be disintegrating the traditional social networks related to family kinship.

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Confronted by the challenges of providing support and service to an increasing number of older population in such context, the Chinese government has adopted and practiced a series of community programs to mobilize grassroots efforts in old age support (Pei & Tang, 2011; Xu et al., 2005). In the mid-1980s, China initiated its “community service” program and then in the mid-1990s the nationwide “community building” program (Bray, 2006; Xu et al., 2005). And the role of community was tentatively defined as the frontline social safety provider (Yan & Gao, 2005) by performing such duties as prospering community culture, developing community environment, strengthening public security, and so on. The Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs immediately adopted the concept of “community construction” and proposed different programs to be incorporated into the community building strategy to provide help and support for the elderly (Bray, 2006; Guo, 1993; Xu et al., 2005). Such organizations as elderly association and elderly recreation centers at community-level have consequently been built to generate and allocate resources for old age support. Studies (Pei & Tang, 2011) have confirmed that the involvement of community-level organizations is becoming increasingly critical for the effectiveness and sustainability of social support programs in current China, including the long-standing Five Guarantees (Wubaohu) social assistance program to the elderly. Do such community-level organizations also relate to the health and well-being of its residents, particularly in terms of enhancing the life satisfaction and happiness of the Chinese elderly? Study is still in paucity to evaluate the function of such community-level organizations. Social Support and Life Satisfaction Studying the well-being of older adults and its association with various social factors has been a hot topic in social science literature over the years (Bowling, 1991; Cheng, 2004; Cheng & Chan, 2006a; Depp & Jeste, 2006). And social support has been recognized as one important social factor associated with the life satisfaction of the elderly (Bowling, 1991; Freeman, 1988). But, controversy still exists with regard to the impact of social support on life satisfaction (Ashida & Heaney, 2008; Uchino, Cacioppo, & Kiecolt-Glaser, 1996). Some studies have shown that higher levels of social support are associated with better well-being and greater life satisfaction among older adults (Bowling, 1991). Study by Cohen and his coauthors (Cohen, Gottlieb, & Underwood, 2000) evidenced that the higher level of social support can positively enhance life satisfaction by enhancing self-esteem, feelings of belonging, and by buffering the adverse effects of stressful life events. However, study by Payne and Graham-Jones (1987) did not confirm the buffering effect of social support on psychological well-being including life satisfaction. Scholars like Knipscheer (1988) even argued that the area of social support is complex, especially in terms of the association between social support and life satisfaction and other areas of well-being.

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Variations also exist in terms of the impact of social support on life satisfaction in Chinese cultural context. Studies by Chou and Chi (1999) and Zhang and Yu (1998) confirmed the significant impact of social support on life satisfaction among Chinese elderly living in Hong Kong and Beijing respectively. Another study, by Li and Liang (2007), evidenced that social support, measured by four indicators of care and concern, sick care, and daily life assistance, has stronger effects on life satisfaction in comparison to the effects from negative interactions. Further, their study indicated that the effects of social support on life satisfaction were stronger for old-old than young-old Chinese. Also orienting in Chinese cultural context, a study by Cheng & Chan (2006b) argued that social relationship, measured by a composite indicator combining social support and harmony in family, would not relate to life satisfaction in the same way for men as for women. According to this study (Cheng & Chan, 2006b), social support was the most important determinant of life satisfaction for women, but it was only a moderator predictor of life satisfaction for married men. For the widowers, it was not significantly related to their life satisfaction. A study by Yeung and Fung (2007) yet indicated that family-based support contributed more to the life satisfaction among the elderly Chinese than did the friend-based support. Focusing on the life satisfaction of the empty-nest elderly in a mountainous rural area in China, Liu and Guo (2008) concluded that for empty-nest elderly in rural China, depression and loneliness rather than social support were the significant predictors of life satisfaction. Social support examined in these studies was mainly family-based, even with variations in the conceptualization and measurement. None of these studies examined the community-based support. Will the family-based support still significantly impact the elderly people’s life satisfaction with the communitybased support available to them? Or will the argument made by Wenger (1984), that the “locally integrated” and “wider community focused” support were more important to the life satisfaction of the elderly compared to more “family-dependent” and “private-restricted” support based on family networks, also be applicable to the older adults in current China, where family life, community dynamics, and cultural norms have been undergoing a series of radical transformations in recent decades. STUDY OBJECTIVES The current study therefore aimed at testing the effects of both family-based and community-based support on life satisfaction among older Chinese adults, after controlling for other major demographic and socioeconomic predictors of life satisfaction. Social support in this study was measured by both the structural and functional properties. Structural measures of social support assess the existence of networks and ties while functional measures of social support assess the particular functions that social relationship may serve such as providing

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support (Ashida & Heaney, 2008; Winemiller, Mitchell, Sutliff, & Cline, 1993). Family-based support was measured by the network and ties with family members and the support dynamics between older adults and their family members. Community-based support was measured by the network and ties at community level and support from the community-level organizations and neighbors other than family members living in the same community. We address these specific questions. First, how sociodemographic background characteristics impact older Chinese adults’ life satisfaction in the transformation era of China? It was hypothesized that sociodemographic characteristics still significantly impacted older Chinese adults’ life satisfaction. Second, what is the association between family-based supports and older adults’ life satisfaction in current China in the context of the fading traditional cultural norms like intergenerational responsibility and filial piety? We expected to see the significant role of family-based support. Third, we wanted to examine whether community-based support was significantly related to older Chinese adults’ life satisfaction? Further, what is the relative contribution of family-based social support, with the availability of community-based support? We expected to see that the community-based support would significantly influence older adults’ life satisfaction. However, the familybased social support is still a significant predictor of older adults’ life satisfaction, even with the availability of community-based support. METHODS Data and Sample Data came from the 2008 Pilot Survey of China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), designed and developed by an international research team from Peking University in China, the University of Southern California, and Oxford University. The design and data collection procedures are described in detail in the CHARLS 2008 Pilot Survey user’s guide (Zhao, Strauss, Park, & Sun, 2009). The 2008 Pilot Survey of CHARLS involved a four-stage probability sample of 2,685 individuals aged 45 years or older from 96 communities/villages in 16 counties/districts from two provinces of China, Gansu and Zhejiang. First, in each province, all county-level units were stratified by whether they were urban districts (qu in Chinese) or rural counties (xian in Chinese). Then the county-level units were randomly selected within each stratum with probabilities proportionate to its population size. Then, in each county-level unit, three primary sampling units (PSU) were randomly selected by PPS (probabilities proportional to size) sampling. In rural areas, the primary sampling unit is village (cun in Chinese), whereas in urban areas it is neighborhood (shequ in Chinese). The households were then randomly selected in each PSU. If a selected household had two or more persons older than 45, one of them was randomly selected to

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be a main respondent to collect information about himself/herself and his/her household. Households without members 45 years or older were not interviewed (Zhao et al., 2009). Community committee directors were personally interviewed to collect information about the community characteristics. This study used data from both household survey and community survey. Official administrative definitions of communities were used. So community in rural areas and urban areas were villages (cun in Chinese) and neighborhoods (shequ in Chinese) respectively. The 96 communities surveyed in 2008 consist of 74 villages in rural areas and 22 neighborhoods in urban areas. Variables and Measures Demographic information, such as age, gender, marital status, were included as covariates. Age was dummy-coded into two groups, with 1 = aged 60 or above and 0 = aged between 45 and 59, to test whether there exist variations among those older adults born before and after the founding of The People’s Republic of China. Gender was dummy-coded with 1 = male and 0 = female in this study. Marital status was also categorized dichotomously with 1= married and living with spouse and 0 = other marital status. Considering China’s residence registration system (Hukou system) and the wide rural-urban discrepancies, a dummy variable of Hukou status was also created with 1 = urban Hukou status and 0 = rural Hukou status. In the CHARLS pilot study, older adults were sampled from two provinces. The economic situations of these two provinces were at two extremes. So a variable “province” was also included as a covariate. And it was dummy-coded as 1 = Gansu (poorer province) while 0 = Zhejiang (wealthier province). Social Economic Status (SES), measured by educational background and household consumption, was also included as covariates. Education was dummy-coded as 1 refers to “at least some education” and 0 “illiterate.” The respondent’s yearly household consumption was used to indicate the respondent’s economic situations, which was measured by the total amount of Chinese yuan spent in the past year. Life Satisfaction was assessed by respondent’s self-evaluation of his/her general life satisfaction. A previous study (Bourque, Pushkar, Bonneville, & Beland, 2005) evidenced that general life satisfaction was closely associated with satisfaction in other important life domains. In CHARLS data, respondents were asked to select from a 4-point scale ranging from “never,” “a little bit of the time,” “occasionally,” to “most or all of the time” to answer the question of how often they would look at their life with a sense of happiness and satisfaction. More than half (62%) of the respondents in CHARLS pilot survey said that they felt satisfied with their lives most or all of the time. There is not sufficient variation among the other categories to detect statistical significance. In addition, as argued by Cummins (2003), most respondents would refuse to

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select “very dissatisfied” as a response option of subjective feeling of life satisfaction and they would always be faced with a binary choice between a point of neutrality and very satisfied. So life satisfaction in this study was measured by a dichotomous item with 1 = “greater life satisfaction” including “most or all of the time” and 0 = “poorer life satisfaction” including the other three categories of “none of the time,” “a little bit of time,” and “occasionally.” The dichotomous items had been successfully used to measure subjective feelings of satisfaction among older adults in a previous study (Wood, Wylie, & Sheafor, 1969). Family-based support was measured by the structural and functional dimensions of family-based support. Structural dimension of family-based support was assessed by the family-based network size—summed by the number of respondent’s core family members—his/her children and his/her siblings still alive. Functional dimensions of family-based support was measured by whether the respondent had received help (monetary or non-monetary) from the family members (1 = have received help from others; 0 = have not received help from others); whether the respondent had provided help (monetary or nonmonetary) to family members (1 = have provided help to others; 0 = have not provided help to others); and the respondent’s perceived availability of support from family members in the future (1 = yes; 0 = no). Community-based support was tapped by these three items: the birthplace of the respondent (1 = born in the current community; 0 = born in another community); number of amenities/organizations available to older adults within the community—a composite measure by summing the number of entertainment facilities or organizations providing services to the elderly within the community; and years the community central committee office has been in existence. Previous studies (Harper, 1987; Wenger, 1989) have confirmed that the migration history of the elderly people would affect their support networks. CHARLS respondents are at least 45 years old. So many of them have experienced the internal migration streams generated from China’s rapid economic growth. In addition, based on the legacy of Chinese clan culture and China’s Danwei (work unit) system, for rural older adults being born in the same village they are currently residing implies that many of their neighbors were sharing the same family name with them and probably many of them were his/her extended family members. Whereas for an urban resident, being born in the same community implies that many of his/her neighbors were also his/her friends and colleagues working at the same work unit. Being born in the same community definitely implies more local ties and connections, which has been clearly identified to be connected with greater availability of instrumental and emotional support among the elders (Seeman & Berkman, 1988). So, birthplace of the older adults can be a reasonable measure to tap the structural aspects of social support at the community level in China. Chinese government has initiated a national policy of community development since the mid-1980s. One leading component of this policy is to provide locally integrated service and support for the older adults by establishing

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community-based service networks composed of locally integrated physical infrastructures, community centers and associations, and administrative infrastructures to ensure support and service delivery in and by the communities (Pei & Tang, 2011; Xu et al., 2005). So, in this study the numbers of entertainment facilities and organizations available to the elders within the community was used to tap another structural aspect of the older adults’ social support at the community level. Specifically, these entertainment facilities and organizations include elderly people’s association, activity center for the elderly, community healthcare center, organizations for helping the elderly and the handicapped, room for card games and chess games, room for PingPong, association for calligraphy and painting, dancing team, outdoor sport facilities, and nursing home. Community central committee is both the lowest level government and the administrative infrastructure within the community to represent the community residents and to design and provide the needed services to its residents, including the elders. Based on the official definition of China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs, community services to the residents are structurally dependent on community-level central committees (Xu et al., 2005). And community central committee office is set as the leading organization at the community level which is responsible for providing services to its residents and assisting in implementing official policies and programs (Xu et al, 2005). One would expect that older adults living in the community that had established the central committee earlier should have received more support compared to their counterparts residing in communities with a shorter history of central committee. And the years the community has established its central committee can be used to appropriately tap the structural aspects of social support at the community level. Statistical Analytic Strategies Older adults in this study were sampled from 22 neighborhoods in urban areas and 74 villages in rural areas in two provinces from China. The data of individuals were clustered in villages and neighborhoods. The observations from the same village or neighborhood may not be independent and there may exist dependency issues among the resulting residuals (Cohen, Cohen, West, & Aiken, 2003; Hox, 2002). Multi-level analysis is a better way to avoid such problems by allowing for a random effect at the community level (Cohen et al., 2003). Further, one aim of this study was to test the relative impact of each of the groups of covariates (sociodemographic background, family-based support, and community-based support) on overall life satisfaction among the respondents, so a series of multilevel logistic regression models were examined in SAS 9.2. All models were estimated using the logit function, with the logarithm of the odds of great life satisfaction as the outcome. Specifically, the following models were specified sequentially: an “empty” model (Model 1) that included only a random intercept; then a second model

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(Model 2) that first includes only socioeconomic and demographic variables and then adds family-based support variables; and a third model that adds community-based support variables (Model 3). These models can be notated as Logit (pij ) = b0j

(Model 1)

Logit (pij ) = b0j + b1jXij

(Model 2)

Logit (pij) = b00 + b10Xij + b01Wj + µ0j + µ1jXij

(Model 3)

where the subscripts i and j reflect older adults and the communities the older adults were residing in, respectively; pij measures the probability of older adults to report greater life satisfaction; b0j is the sum of an intercept that can vary over the communities; Xij refers to individual-level (level 1) predictors that include the older adult’s socioeconomic status, demographic background, and family-based support; b1j reflects the slope for the relationship in community j (level 2) between the older adult’s life satisfaction and the level-1 predictors; b10Xij reflects the fixed effects of all the individual-level predictors, b01Wj reflects the fixed effect of the community-based social support variables; µ0j and µ1jXij represent the two random components. For each model, we calculated the intra-class correlation (ICC), which estimates the model’s residual variance that is attributable to the community-based social support. We could estimate the relative contribution of community-based support by comparing the ICC of Model 3 to other models. RESULTS Descriptive Statistics Descriptive statistics of the major variables are presented in Table 1. In CHARLS 2008 pilot survey sample, the majority of the respondents were from rural areas with poor education. Most of them were married and were living with their spouses. More than half of the respondents in the study reported greater satisfaction with their current lives. Approximately 80% of the respondents believed that they would get help or support in the future from family members. Slightly more than half reported that they had received help from others, while less than half reported that they had provided help to others. Nearly half of older adults in the study were born in the same community/village they were residing in during the interview. Most communities had established their committee office during the 1980s; and these 96 communities on average had five community-based associations or amenities available for the older population.

49% 4.75 (3.26) 28.34 (18.81)

6.8 (3.5) 51% 49% 77%

Range/Categories

0 = others; 1 = born in current community/village 0–14 2–59

2–15 0 = no; 1 = yes 0 = no; 1 = yes 0 = no; 1 = yes

0 = illiterate; 1 = at least some formal education 0 = (CN¥)–10,000 (CN¥)

0 = female; 1 = male 0 = younger group; 1 = older group 0 = rural; 1 = urban 0 = otherwise; 1 = married & living with spouse 0 = Zhejiang; 1 = Gansu

0 = not satisfied; 1 = satisfied

Note: SD = standard deviation. aPercentage of older adults scoring 1 on the variable.

Community-based social support Birthplace Amenities/associations number Committee office existence (years)

Family-based social support Network size Receiving help Providing help Having perceived support

57% 6985.80 (7078.33)

48% 44% 20% 82% 53%

Demographic characteristics Sex Age Hukou status Marital status Province

SES variables Education attainment Household expenditure

62%

Mean (SD) or %a

Dependent variable Life satisfaction

Individual Level Variables (N = 996)

Table 1. Descriptive Statistics for Variables of the Final Sample (CHARLS Pilot, 2008)

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Multilevel Analysis Results Table 2 presents the odds ratios of reporting satisfaction with the current life, as well as the 95% confidence interval for the odds ratio. The test results in Model 1 of Table 2 (the null model without any predictor variables) indicated that the 96 communities in CHARLS 2008 pilot survey were different from each other in their elderly residents’ life satisfaction. Such demographic variables and socioeconomic status variables as Hukou status, marital status, residential province, and educational level were found to be significant predictors of greater life satisfaction among respondents in this study. As expected, respondents who were married and living with their spouses were more likely to report satisfaction with current life (odds ratio = 1.62, p < 0.01). The predicted odds of reporting greater life satisfaction for respondents with urban Hukou status were 23% higher (odds ratio = 1.23, p < 0.01) than that for respondents with rural Hukou status. While the predicted odds of reporting life satisfaction for respondents in Gansu province (odds ratio = 0.40, p < 0.001) were 60% lower than respondents from Zhejiang province. Introducing socioeconomic status variables did not change the effects of marital status and province of residence. In addition, as expected, the respondent’s education was a significant predictor of his/her life satisfaction—those respondents who could at least read and write on average were more likely to report life satisfaction (odds ratio = 1.19, p < .05). Model 2C in Table 2 introduced the family-based social support variables. The only significant predictor is the perceived availability of future support. The odds ratio of reporting life satisfaction for those respondents who were sure they would get the needed help and support in the future was 1.59 (p < 0.01). Among three community-based support variables, significant effect of birthplace (odds ratio = 0.66, p < 0.05) and years the community committee was in existence (odds ratio = 1.01, p < 0.05) were observed. For those respondents who were born in the same community/village where they were currently living, the predicted odds of reporting life satisfaction decreased by 34%. Those respondents who were living in communities/villages that established their own community/village committee earlier were more likely to report satisfaction with life (odds ratio = 1.01, p < .05) compared to respondents living in communities/ villages with a relatively short history of a community/ village committee. Also, even with the inclusion of the community-based social support variables, marital status (odds ratio = 1.90, p < 0.01), province of residency (odds ratio = 0.35, p < 0.001), educational background (odds ratio = 1.30, p < 0.05), and perceived availability of future support from family (odds ratio = 1.81, p < 0.01) still significantly impacted the respondents’ general life satisfaction.

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DISCUSSION The current study examined the effects of family-based and community-based social support on life satisfaction among older Chinese adults, while controlling the effects from key demographic and socioeconomic status variables. Our findings contributed to the current literature on life satisfaction among older adults in Chinese cultural context with the following implications. First, socioeconomic differences with life satisfaction exist among older adults in current China. Our statistical analysis illustrated that respondents with urban Hukou status, living in Zhejiang province (wealthier area), and with better educational background consistently reported greater life satisfaction in all models. This may not simply reflect an urban versus rural or east versus west difference, but a socioeconomic difference with life satisfaction. As an institutional legacy, Hukou status in China works as an institutional identity which entitles people to different economic resources, education, employment, and social welfare benefits depending on whether their registered residence is in a rural village or an urban neighborhood. Urban residents are born to be “workers” and are provided with an “iron rice bowl” of lifetime employment, while rural residents are born to be farmers and are organized into collectives. Even with its recent economic development and the relatively relaxed Hukou control over the migration across rural to urban areas, a number of studies have shown that people with different Hukou backgrounds still fare differently in China and those with a rural Hukou generally fare worse than their urban counterparts (Cheng & Mark, 1994; Liu, 2005). Respondents of CHARLS 2008 pilot survey were sampled from two provinces in China, Gansu and Zhejiang. Located in the less-developed western area of China, Gansu province is among the poorest provinces in China; while Zhejiang province is located in the economically vibrant east coastal area of China and has always been ranked among the richest provinces in China since 1990 (Zhao et al., 2009). The differences across rural versus urban Hukou and across Gansu versus Zhejiang province actually reflected the differences across socioeconomic classes with life satisfaction in current China. Second, our study indicated that support from family is still important, though the details of the support may decide its influence on life satisfaction among older Chinese adults. Among the family-based social support indicators used in this study, only the perceived availability of future support significantly predicted the respondent’s life satisfaction. Yet, the network ties and the support dynamics between respondents and their family members were not important. It seemed that only the older adults’ psychological assurance of perceived availability of help or support was related to their life satisfaction. We got such results probably because we did not tap such details of family-based support as the actual interaction, the quality of reciprocity, the type of social support, and the

Household expenditure

Socioeconomic Status At least some formal education

Gansu Province

Married and living with spouse

Urban Hukou

60 years or older

Individual Predictors Demographic Background Male

Fixed parameter

Model 1

1.04 (0.95/1.15) 0.95 (0.85/1.05) 1.23** (1.06/1.41) 1.62** (1.42/1.86) 0.40*** (0.35/0.47)

Model 2A

1.19* (1.04/1.30) 1.02 (1.00/1.04)

0.99 (0.89/1.10) 0.95 (0.86/1.06) 1.23** (1.06/1.42) 1.65** (1.43/1.89) 0.40*** (0.35/0.46)

Model 2B

1.70* (1.08/1.48) 1.02 (0.99/1.04)

1.18 (0.99/1.40) 1.06 (0.91/1.23) 1.01** (0.82/1.23) 1.97** (1.63/2.38) 0.49*** (0.41/0.58)

Model 2C

Table 2. Odds Ratio from the Multilevel Logistic Models for Reporting Greater Life Satisfaction (N = 996; 95% Confidence Interval in Parentheses)

1.30* (1.11/1.51) 1.02 (0.99/1.04)

1.16 (0.97/1.39) 1.09 (0.93/1.28) 1.18** (0.94/1.48) 1.90** (1.54/2.33) 0.35*** (0.28/0.44)

Model 3

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2536.44 2536.49 2554.31 2536.44

2656.36 2656.22 2567.34 2656.36

+p < .01; *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001.

0.055

0.066

Intra-class correlation (ICC) Model Fit Statistics –2 Log Likelihood AIC AICC BIC

0.19** (.06)

0.232** (.06)

Random parameters across communities (s2m0)

Years committee existed

Number of amenities

Community-Based Social Support Born in the current community

Perceived future help

Providing help

Receiving help

Family-Based Social Support Network size

2514.93 2515.02 2537.91 2514.93

0.055

0.19* (.06)

2456.62 2456.97 2457.98 2456.62

0.063

0.22* (.10)

1.00 (0.98/1.02) 0.96 (0.83/1.10) 0.94 (0.82/0.92) 1.59** (1.35/1.88)

1126.42 1126.98 1128.98 1126.42

0.046

0.16* (.10)

0.66* (0.55/0.79) 1.04 (1.01/1.08) 1.01* (1.00/1.02)

0.99 (0.98/1.02) 0.97 (0.84/1.12) 0.96 (0.83/1.12) 1.81** (1.54/2.15)

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sources of social support, which were suggested to be considered (Cheng, Lee, Chan, Leung, & Lee, 2009; Li, Fok, & Fung, 2011) in studying the relationship between social support and life satisfaction. With regard to the community-based support, the years of community central committee in existence, rather than the number of entertainment and recreational facilities and organizations available for the elderly people, was significantly related to the life satisfaction among respondents. In China, the committee office within the village in the rural areas (cunweihui in Chinese) or the committee office within the neighborhood in the urban areas (juweihui in Chinese) is set as the structurally administrative infrastructure responsible for the civil affairs within the community and also for assisting in implementing some policies from the central government and delivering welfare and other social services to its residents (Pan, 2004; Xu et al., 2005). Such committees and the persons serving on these committees are often trusted and regarded as the sources for consultation, help, and protection when the residents are in need of support in terms of some personal affairs. The significant impact of the history of the communitylevel central committee indicates that the Chinese government’s initiatives of establishing administrative infrastructures at the community-level to provide social welfare services is an effective strategy of its community development program. It also empirically supports the argument that community-level committees are becoming critical for the sustainable development of community in current China (Pei & Tang, 2011). Whether the respondent was born in the same community where he/she was living was also used as an indicator to tap the structural aspects of communitybased support in this study. It was expected that respondents born in the same community where they were residing would be more likely to report life satisfaction because they may have more social ties and thus may receive more social support. In fact, the opposite was found. This opposite effect was found perhaps because of inequalities across China’s rural-urban areas and the Chinese government’s strict control over its citizens’ mobility and migration, particularly before the open door policy. Under China’s rural-urban Hukou system, residents in one area were strictly prohibited from settling down in other areas. Strict control was especially exercised to limit the mobility and migration of rural residents to urban areas and to limit the mobility and migration of residents in economically poorer areas to wealthier areas (Cheng & Mark, 1994). Considering that the majority of the respondents in this study were from rural areas and the difficulties of changing residence as well as the differences across rural-urban Hukou in China, it is possible that respondents who were still living in the same community where they were born felt unsatisfied with their lives just because they had never experienced upward social mobility by changing their rural Hukou status or residential location. Further, our study indicated that perceived help from family members still significantly impacted older Chinese adults’ life satisfaction in the context of the

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changing dynamics of family life in current China. Even with the inclusion of community-based support variables, the significant impact of respondent’s perceived availability of future support from family members still hold in the multilevel model. It seems that the cultural transmissions in the globalization era and the consequent transformation in family structure and family life in China have not undermined the traditional psychosocial expectations and cultural assumptions about family in current China. China has a strong cultural tradition valuing the collectivism and mutual support between family members. Family in traditional Chinese culture has been underpinned with the legitimate expectations and responsibilities of sharing common household resources among family members and helping each other when in need. But China is facing the challenge of mixing the traditional cultural frameworks with such dominant symbolic systems of the global age as individualism and commercialism (Steger, 2009; Xu et al., 2005). The increasing intensification of globalization facilitated the exploding of cultural transmissions across the globe more freely than ever before (Steger, 2009). The tension between such different cultural frameworks may pose harm to the texture of different cultural values. However, our study indicated that the traditional Chinese cultural assumption of family as the central and significant social organization where family members support each other to fulfill various social needs still hold in current China. While this study contributed to the study of relationship between family-based and community-based social support and life satisfaction among older Chinese adults, several limitations of this study need to be acknowledged. First, this study was constrained in its measures of social support. The structural aspects of family-based social support was mainly tapped with a summed measure of the respondent’s core family members. But no further details, such as the contact frequency and interaction dynamics, were examined, which had been indicated to be exerting impacts on support dynamics of the elderly Chinese with their family members (Chan & Lee, 2006; Cooney & Di, 1999; Zimmer & Kwong, 2003) and health and well-being of the elderly people in China (Chen & Short, 2008; Liu, Liang, & Gu, 1995). In addition, the three variables used in this study to measure the community-level social support only tapped the structural characteristics of community-based support networks but did not provide information of the functional features of these support networks. Support networks are necessary for the elders to get support yet the dynamics and functional features of the supportive network also impact the availability of instrumental and emotional support available to the elders (Wenger & Tucker, 2002). For example, many older adults probably will never use any entertainment facilities or will never try to seek help from any available organizations within the community at all. Further, the community central committee may exist as an administrative infrastructure without really designing and providing any appropriate services for its elderly residents. Second, this study was conducted in two provinces in China, with Gansu province being one of the poorest provinces

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Direct reprint requests to: Yuying Shen, PhD Department of Sociology, Anthropology & Social Work Texas Tech University Lubbock, TX 79409 e-mail: [email protected]