老人是否持有不動產與獨居之聯合決策分析──並由居住滿意度分析老人獨居之性質

The Joint Decision Making of Holding Real Assets and Living Alone among Elderly People in Taiwan-And Understanding the Nature of Living Alone through the Satisfaction Level of Elderly People

台灣老年人口比例已超過10%，其中獨居老人的日益增加是整個社會關注的焦點。本研究建立一個概念性模型用以說明老人是否持有不動產、是否獨居以及居住安排滿意度三個變數之間的因果關係。在實證部分利用行政院衛生署的「台灣地區中老年身心社會生活狀況長期追蹤調查研究」民國85年與民國96年資料。首先藉由雙變量常態機率模型同時估計老人是否持有不動產與是否獨居的決策。接著以排序性邏輯特模型進一步分析老人的居住滿意度。連結三個模型的估計結果可以發現台灣老人持有不動產會使老人獨居機率增加，其原因可能是老人較難適應新環境而不得不選擇留在原來的地方獨居，而由於老人是被動選擇獨居而使得居住滿意度較低。然而此種情形已經在改變之中，民國96年老人仍是被動選擇獨居，但是不滿意的程度已略有降低。

Elderly people account for more than 10% of the total population in Taiwan. Among the issues related to elderly people, the increasing probability of living alone is attracting more and more attention from the whole of society. In this paper, we first establish a conceptual model to explain the causal relationships among holding assets, living alone and the level of satisfaction with living arrangements of elderly people. The data used in the empirical study are obtained from ”The Survey of Health and Living Status of the Near Elderly and Elderly in Taiwan” for 1996 and 2007, which is conducted by the Department of Health. In the empirical study, a bivariate probit model is used first to estimate the joint decision making of holding assets and living alone. Then an ordered logistic regression is used for the satisfaction with living model. By combining the different findings from the empirical results, we note that aged people who hold real assets have a higher probability of living alone relative to those not holding any real assets. This is probably owing to the fact that they are not able to adapt to a new environment and decide to stay in their original residence alone. In other words, they live alone involuntarily, and hence have a lower level of satisfaction than those who hold assets and do not live alone.