The China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) is a

longitudinal survey A longitudinal study (or longitudinal survey, or panel study) is a research design that involves repeated observations of the same variables (e.g., people) over short or long periods of time (i.e., uses longitudinal data). It is often a type of obs ...

being conducted by the China Center for Economic Research at

Peking University Peking University (PKU; ) is a public research university in Beijing, China. The university is funded by the Ministry of Education. Peking University was established as the Imperial University of Peking in 1898 when it received its royal charter ...

with Professor Yaohui Zhao of Peking University serving as

Principal Investigator In many countries, the term principal investigator (PI) refers to the holder of an independent grant and the lead researcher for the grant project, usually in the sciences, such as a laboratory study or a clinical trial. The phrase is also often us ...

and Professor
John Strauss
of the

University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in C ...

and Albert Park of

HKUST Institute for Emerging Market Studies HKUST Institute for Emerging Market Studies (HKUST IEMS) is a university-level institute under thOffice of the Vice-President for Research and Graduate Studiesof The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). It is launched on May 27 ...

serving as co-Principal Investigators.

Goals

The survey will collect a

representative sample In statistics, quality assurance, and survey methodology, sampling is the selection of a subset (a statistical sample) of individuals from within a statistical population to estimate characteristics of the whole population. Statisticians attempt ...

of Chinese 45 and older every two years to enable multidisciplinary studies on issues related to

population ageing Population ageing is an increasing median age in a population because of declining fertility rates and rising life expectancy. Most countries have rising life expectancy and an ageing population, trends that emerged first in developed countries b ...

. China is one of the fastest ageing countries in the world and accounts for a large fraction of the growth in the world's old. By 2050, China's elderly (65 and older) population share is expected to reach 30%.

Funding

The pilot survey is funded by the

National Institute on Aging The National Institute on Aging (NIA) is a division of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), located in Bethesda, Maryland. The NIA itself is headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland. The NIA leads a broad scientific effort to understand the ...

, the

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Interna ...

, and Natural Science Foundation of China.

Data Collection

The questionnaire contains information on household

demographics Demography () is the statistical study of populations, especially human beings. Demographic analysis examines and measures the dimensions and dynamics of populations; it can cover whole societies or groups defined by criteria such as edu ...

, transfers among family members, health status, health care, employment, income, consumption and

assets In financial accountancy, financial accounting, an asset is any resource owned or controlled by a business or an economic entity. It is anything (tangible or intangible) that can be used to produce positive economic value. Assets represent value ...

, as well as information on health facilities of the community and government policies in local areas. The CHARLS is designed on the models of health and retirement studies originated from the

Health and Retirement Study The Health and Retirement Study (HRS) is a longitudinal survey of a representative sample of Americans over age 50 conducted by the Survey Research Center (SRC) at the Institute for Social Research (ISR) at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor ...

(HRS) in the U.S., but has the advantage of including information on the community the respondent resides and local policies. Due to large internal variations of government policies, the data will enable analyses of policy impacts in the process of population ageing. Other countries participating in this international network of ageing studies include

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, fifteen countries in continental

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...

, and

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

Initial Results

The pilot survey was conducted in two provinces (

Zhejiang Zhejiang ( or , ; , also romanized as Chekiang) is an eastern, coastal province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable cities include Ningbo and Wenzhou. Zhejiang is bordered by Jiang ...

and

Gansu Gansu (, ; alternately romanized as Kansu) is a province in Northwest China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeast part of the province. The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibet ...

) in 2008 and collected data on roughly 1,600 households. The pilot data of 2008 has been released to the research community since April 30, 2009. The national baseline survey is being planned for 2011. CHARLS data will be available for download by researchers at no cost.

Sister studies

The Health and Retirement Study The Health and Retirement Study (HRS) is a longitudinal survey of a representative sample of Americans over age 50 conducted by the Survey Research Center (SRC) at the Institute for Social Research (ISR) at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor ...

(HRS) *

English Longitudinal Study of Ageing The English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) is a longitudinal study that collects multidisciplinary data from a representative sample of the English population aged 50 and older to look at all aspects of aging in England. The study started in ...

(ELSA) *

The Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe The Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) is a multidisciplinary and cross-national panel database of micro data on health, socio-economic status and social and family networks. In seven survey waves to date, SHARE has conduc ...

(SHARE)
Korean Longitudinal Study of Ageing
(KLoSA)

External links

China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study

Contact Page - Zhao Yaohui

Contact Page - John Strauss

Albert Park

Study on global AGEing and adult health (SAGE)

References

{{Health in the People's Republic of China Health in China Gerontology Retirement