Living Arrangement Preferences Analysis of Chinese Elders: Evidence From CLHLS 2005-2011 Waves

This paper uses the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey 2005-2011 (CLHLS) to study factors that influence Chinese elders’ living arrangement preferences; whether they prefer co-residence with their children or not. The CLHLS contains elders’ preferred living arrangements as well as their personal and household information. The data shows that 67% of elders surveyed changed their preferences between 2005 and 2011. Elderly people who became widowed, those who gained pension coverage, and those who had increases in annual household income were more likely to change their preferred living arrangement to co-residence with their children. Specifically, for elderly people who have increases in their annual household income, those who cannot self-financed their living expenses have more desire to co-residence than those who can. While on the other hand, changes in elders’ residence locations, elders’ quality of life, optimism level and loneliness level do not have significant impact on elderly people’s preferences on living arrangements. This study focuses on elderly people’s preferences rather than their actual living arrangement but could have implication for developing policies to improve their living quality.