To understand the impact of digital literacy on the health behavior of rural older adults in China, and to provide policy basis and intervention measures for improving their health behavior. This study utilizes data from 1207 rural older adults aged 60 and above in the 2020 China Rural Revitalization Survey (CRRS), employing the Ordered Probit model and instrumental variable analysis to assesses the impact of digital literacy on the health behavior of rural older adults in China. Furthermore, the study examines the mediating effects of happiness and future expectations and analyses the differences in the impact of digital literacy across dimensions such as age, gender, and physical health status. (1) Digital literacy can improve the health behavior of rural older adults, including promoting their learning of health knowledge, engaging in fitness or exercise activities, consciously controlling salt, sugar and edible oil usage. The results are robust to various tests. (2) Mediation analysis reveals that sense of happiness and future expectations are the primary pathways through which digital literacy influences the health behavior of rural older adults. (3) Heterogeneity analysis further shows that age, gender, and BMI differences have varying impacts on the health behavior. This study provides crucial policy implications for promoting healthy aging and digital inclusion in rural China, including investing in rural digital infrastructure, implementing digital literacy training programs, and guiding rural older adults to effectively apply digital platforms for health-related purposes.

Background: Understand the current situation of social activities among older adults and its impact on mental health, providing policy basis and intervention measures to improve the mental health of the older adult.Method: Collect relevant data from 8,181 older adults aged ≥ 60 years old from the 2020 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), constructing an analysis framework for social activities of older adults in China from three aspects: participation in social activities, number of social activities, frequency of social activities, and describe them, then analyzing the impact of social activities on their mental health using OLS and 2SLS regression models. This study also discusses the impact of eight social activities on the mental health of older adult people through subgroup.Result: Among 8,181 older adults aged 60 and above, 3,808 participated in social activities (56.24%), average number of social activities is 0.71, and average frequency of social activities is 1.31 times. The average score of mental health level measured by CES-D is 15.24 points. Participate in social activities can reduce the depression level of the older adult (β = −0.352, 95%CI: −0.547~−0.158); the more social activities the older adult participate in, the lower the depression level of the older adult (β = −0.214, 95%CI: −0.313~−0.115); the higher the frequency of participating in social activities, the lower the depression level of the older adult (β = −0.133, 95%CI: −0.182~−0.083). In summary, social activities can improve the mental health level of the older adults in China. As for different types of social activities, visiting and socializing with friends, participating in club organization activities, playing mahjong, chess, cards, or going to community activity rooms and attending school or training courses can improve the mental health of the older adult.Discussion: The social activities in three dimensions among older adults in China need to be further improved, and participating in social activities can help improve their mental health. The conclusion provides important policy implications for encouraging and supporting older adults to participate in various social activities, increasing the number and frequency of older adult social activities, then help improving the mental health level of older adults.

The longevity economy is considered to be the fastest growing model in the world, and the consumption of the older adults not only has huge potential and room for improvement in terms of quantity, but also in terms of structure. At the same time, with the increasing impact of digitization on the lives of the elderly, digital literacy has become a key factor for them to integrate into modern consumer society and improve their quality of life. Therefore, this study utilized data from Chinese Family Panel Studies(CFPS) and matched it with provincial-level macro data indicators to empirically explore the impact of digital literacy among older residents on the upgrading of household consumption structure and its potential mechanisms. The research results indicate that: (1) Digital literacy among older residents significantly promotes the household consumption structure upgrading. Specifically, for every unit of improvement in digital literacy, their consumption structure will upgrade by 1.6%. This significant result has been confirmed by rigorous endogeneity testing and robustness discussions. (2) Heterogeneity analysis found that the impact is particularly evident among older residents with shorter internet usage, receiving endowment insurance, and live in the eastern regions. (3) In terms of mechanisms, digital literacy of older residents mainly promotes the upgrading of household consumption structure by improving elderly’s mental health and reducing their precautionary savings. Given China’s current emphasis on enhancing residents’ digital literacy and skills, the insights and mechanisms presented in this article regarding the impact of digital literacy on consumption structure can provide valuable references for stimulating the longevity economy market and bridging the digital divide among the older residents.

The key to promoting urbanization in China is to achieve urban integration of migrant peasant workers, and basic public health services may have a potential social impact on the subjective welfare of migrant peasant workers. In this paper, we use data from the China Migrants Dynamic Survey (CMDS) to study the impact of basic public health services on the urban integration of migrant peasant workers. The results show that basic public health services can significantly improve the probability of migrant peasant workers’ urban integration. The conclusions remain robust after mitigating potential endogeneity issues using the propensity score matching method (PSM), the CMP method, and robustness testing by replacing the explanatory variables with the reduced tail treatment. Further research found that the impact of basic public health services on migrant peasant workers’ urban integration is heterogeneous. The urban integration effect of basic public health services is more significant in male, high school and above, migrant peasant workers’ groups. The urban integration effect of basic public health services gradually increases with upgrading of the urban grade at the second-tier city and higher urban levels, and it also plays a vital role in the urban integration of the migrant peasant workers at the third-tier city and lower urban levels. Our findings also provide an evidence-based policy for China to promote equalizing basic public health services and a path to the urbanization of migrant peasant workers.