Is China Moving toward Healthy Aging? A Tracking Study Based on 5 Phases of CLHLS Data

Health is the key to the aging problem, and “healthy aging” depicts the overall changing trends in the health of all elderly individuals in a society. Based on the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS) data from the years 2002, 2005, 2008, 2011 and 2014, this article investigates whether there is a trend of “healthy aging” in China. A second-order factor model including four dimensions of physical health, functional status, mental health and social health was constructed to measure a latent variable, “Health_elders”. The further multigroup comparison results by structural equation modeling showed that, with the exception of 2008, the Health_elders in 2002, 2005, 2011 and 2014 displayed an upward trend, and the mean differences in Health_elders across five periods were significant. These findings indicate that on the whole, compared with older people in the past, older people in more recent periods are healthier, which supports the trend of “healthy aging” in China. In terms of cohorts, the average health levels of male, town-residing elderly populations are higher, while the healthy aging trends among female, rural and urban elderly populations are stronger. Moreover, the physical health levels of the 60–74 years-old cohort are decreasing, and the participation of elderly individuals in social activities is low, which are the weaknesses in the healthy aging process in China.