Can Participation in Exercise Inhibit Pension Anxiety?Empirical Evidence from CGSS Data

Alleviating pension anxiety holds profound significance for promoting the implementation of the national proactive aging strategy. Based on the theories of health promotion, social capital, and the subjective well-being framework, this study delves deeply into the influence of physical exercise on pension anxiety and its mechanism of action. Grounded on the data from the China General Social Survey (CGSS) in 2010 and 2021, it adopts the OLS regression model, the instrumental variable model, and the Bootstrap mediating effect model to examine the multi-dimensional influence paths of physical exercise on pension anxiety. The results reveal that: 1) Physical exercise has a stable and significant inhibitory effect on pension anxiety, contributing to alleviating the prevailing mood of pension anxiety; 2) apart from directly suppressing pension anxiety, physical exercise can also indirectly mitigate pension anxiety through variables such as health status, negative emotions, social interaction, and well-being, forming parallel and chain mediating paths; 3) pension anxiety exhibits urban-rural differences and age heterogeneity. The level of pension anxiety among rural residents is higher than that of urban residents, while age and pension anxiety present an inverted U-shaped characteristic. It is indicated that physical exercise can be regarded as an effective intervention scheme, playing a vital role in relieving individual pension anxiety and lowering the overall level of pension anxiety in society.