我国老年人健康预期寿命探究: 基于抑郁维度的测算

Psychological health is a vital aspect of health, however, current studies on healthy life expectancy tend to overlook the exploration of healthy life expectancy from the psychological aspect of health. To fill this gap, the study utilized depression as an indicator to measure psychological health, and adopted the 2011～2015 longitudinal database from the Chinese Health and Retirement Longitudinal Survey to compute the depression-free life expectancy of Chinese elderly population by using the multistate life table method. Results identified that total life expectancy and depression-free life expectancy of Chinese elderly population stood at 22.95 and 16.60 years at age 60 respectively during 2011～2015，with depression-free life expectancy accounting for 72.33% of the remaining life. Proportion of depression-free life expectancy in total life expectancy exhibits an increasing trend as age increases, which is substantially different from the decreasing trend of healthy life expectancy measured from the physical health dimension reported by previous studies. Results also show a salient difference of depression-free life expectancy by gender, rural-urban divide and the initial depression status at age 60 in China. Elderly people who are male, living in urban areas and without depression at age 60 enjoy a longer depression-free life expectancy than their counterparts in both absolute and relative terms. Increased concerns on psychological health of female elderly people and rural elderly residents are needed, and a life-cycle-oriented elderly health policy is also suggested to enhance the psychological health for the elderly population.