IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/endesu/v27y2025i8d10.1007_s10668-024-04735-x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The impact of city size and basic eldercare services on the disability risk of older adults: empirical evidence from 122 cities in China

Author

Listed:
  • Huan Liu

    (Soochow University)

Abstract

Based on the follow-up survey data of two phases of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, this study empirically examines the impact of city size and basic eldercare services on older adults’ disability risk, as well as their synergy, using a panel-ordered logit model, stepwise analysis method, and Karlson–Holm–Breen method. We discuss their potential transmission mechanism and find that city size and basic eldercare services have a significant positive effect on older adults’ activities of daily living. Together, city size and basic eldercare services play a regulating role; however, the urban sprawl index significantly reduces the role of city size and basic eldercare services in mitigating disability risks and shows significant group heterogeneity in terms of age, registered residence, and income. City size and basic eldercare services act as transmission mechanisms through the resource, social participation, and income effects of medical and health services. Their contribution to the cumulative medium effect of city size, number of eldercare service institutions, eldercare beds, and eldercare beds per thousand people reached 53.90%, 61.39%, 66.66%, and 15.27%, respectively. The findings confirm that city size and basic eldercare services have an important impact on older adults’ disability risk. They also help reduce older adults’ disability risk through joint efforts. However, with the gradual increase in urban sprawl, the impact of city size and basic eldercare services has weakened significantly. Graphical abstract

Suggested Citation

  • Huan Liu, 2025. "The impact of city size and basic eldercare services on the disability risk of older adults: empirical evidence from 122 cities in China," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 27(8), pages 19491-19515, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:endesu:v:27:y:2025:i:8:d:10.1007_s10668-024-04735-x
    DOI: 10.1007/s10668-024-04735-x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10668-024-04735-x
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10668-024-04735-x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:endesu:v:27:y:2025:i:8:d:10.1007_s10668-024-04735-x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.