Supply-demand gap and well-being loss: The relationship between expected-actual gap in community-based elderly care services and subjective well-being among older adults in China

With the acceleration of population aging, community-based elderly care services have become increasingly important for the subjective well-being of older adults. Based on data from the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS), this study examined 13,057 older adults aged 60 years and above (Mean age = 85.38, SD = 11.66) to investigate the relationship between community-based elderly care services and subjective well-being, with particular attention to the expected-actual gap in service provision. In the sample, women accounted for 55.92% and men for 44.08%; older adults with rural household registration accounted for 71.82%, while those with urban household registration accounted for 28.18%. The results showed that different types of expected community-based elderly care services were negatively associated with older adults' subjective well-being, whereas different types of actual services were significantly positively associated with subjective well-being. Further analyses indicated that a larger expected-actual gap was associated with lower subjective well-being. Latent profile analysis further revealed that once the gap reached a certain level, its marginal detrimental effect on subjective well-being tended to stabilize. Compared with the "low-discrepancy" profile, older adults in the "moderate-discrepancy" profile showed a slight decrease in subjective well-being (β = -0.014, p < 0.01), while those in the "high-discrepancy" profile showed a larger decrease (β = -0.021, p < 0.001). These findings suggest that older adults with a smaller expected-actual gap have a relative advantage in subjective well-being, whereas those with a larger gap are at a clear disadvantage. This study provides empirical evidence for optimizing community-based elderly care services, narrowing the gap between service expectation and actual service receipt, and improving older adults' subjective well-being.