Business School, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou, China.
Research Center for Government Governance and Public Policy of Yangzhou University, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou, China.
Front Public Health. 2022 Oct 10;10:1031939. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2022.1031939. eCollection 2022.
Responding to an aging society worldwide and ensuring the physical and mental health of the elderly are important problems that need to be addressed. Thus, this study aimed to improve the quality of providing the spiritual and cultural needs of the elderly and study the internal transmission of reading habits and its effect on the physical and mental health of the elderly. Using the data from China's comprehensive social survey in 2018, this study applied the Probit model and ordinary least squares method to comprehensively estimate the influence of reading habits of the elderly on their physical and mental health. Stepwise regression and bootstrap method were combined to explore the influencing mechanism, and an instrumental variable method was used to solve endogeneity problems. Results indicate that the reading habits of the elderly have a significantly positive effect on their own physical and mental health. Social activity is the positive conduction path, whereas social justice perception and learning willingness are the negative conduction path. Among low-income families, agricultural workers, and the elderly whose household registration is in rural areas, the benefits of reading to the body and mind are more significant. After dealing with endogeneity problems and a series of robustness tests, the conclusion of this paper still holds. Finally, reference policy suggestions are proposed for the follow-up active aging policy, such as promoting reading for all, organizing various social activities, formulating active pension policies for the elderly, and allocating more public resources for vulnerable elderly groups.
应对全球老龄化社会和确保老年人身心健康是需要解决的重要问题。因此，本研究旨在提高满足老年人精神文化需求的质量，并研究阅读习惯的内部传递及其对老年人身心健康的影响。本研究利用 2018 年中国综合社会调查的数据，应用 Probit 模型和普通最小二乘法综合估计老年人阅读习惯对其身心健康的影响。通过逐步回归和 bootstrap 方法探讨影响机制，并采用工具变量法解决内生性问题。结果表明，老年人的阅读习惯对其自身身心健康有显著的正向影响。社会活动是正向传导路径，而社会公正感知和学习意愿是负向传导路径。在低收入家庭、农业劳动者和户籍在农村地区的老年人中，阅读对身心的益处更为显著。在处理内生性问题和一系列稳健性检验后，本文的结论仍然成立。最后，针对后续积极老龄化政策，提出了促进全民阅读、组织各类社会活动、制定老年人积极的养老金政策以及为弱势老年人群体分配更多公共资源等参考政策建议。
