Empirical Study of the Impact of Chronic Disease Conditions on the Willingness to Age in Nursing Homes among Rural Chinese Elderly

Abstract

With the aging of China's population and the seriousness of rural population loss, the problem of the old-age care for the elderly in rural China is becoming more and more serious. This paper focuses on the impact of chronic diseases on the willingness to choose nursing homes for the old age of the rural elderly, and uses the data from the 2019 "Thousands of People, Hundreds of Villages" project to conduct regression analyses. The study finds that rural elderly with chronic diseases have a higher willingness to choose nursing homes than those without chronic diseases, and those with more or more serious chronic diseases have higher willingness. Meanwhile, age and personal income also have significant effects on willingness. To improve the quality of life of them and to ensure their basic needs in old age, this study suggests that attention should be paid to the chronic disease status of the rural elderly and that the rural old age pension system should be actively improved.